Up a Tree (p.23)
The forest was tall here, the understory mostly clear, with some ferns, and a few huge boulders scattered around. They’d been making good time. Amy wasn’t looking forward to more walking, but at least they were going well prepared.
Eula handed her a backpack. “Thanks,” she took it without looking and stared up at the trees, they looked a bit like short redwoods. Comparatively short that is. Any of the big “home” trees on this planet would dwarf them. But they were straight, and tall, and had that rough reddish bark.
Suddenly she frowned and looked around. She turned to Rory as he staggered over, adjusting the weight of his pack. “Why do I feel like we’re in the forest of Endor?”
Rory looked up and looked around and laughed. “Yeah, it does look like it, a bit.”
“No speeders though,” Amy sighed looking at the downed tram. Bill was pulling out the last of their supplies, piling them on the ground to be distributed. Amy heaved up her backpack and went to pull it on.
She stared down in consternation. It didn’t have any straps. It was just the pack, with a couple of clips at the top and bottom. “How am I supposed to wear this?”
Eula looked up from where he was helping Bill stack supplies. He grinned. “Here,” he held out a hand and she passed him the pack. “They’re designed to clip onto the chute harness,” he explained. Going behind her and clipping the backpack to her shoulders.
He stepped back, and she shrugged. The pack had been heavy, she hadn’t looked forward to lugging it around. But with the weight distributed across her chute harness it was a lot lighter and more comfortable.
“How do I take it off?” she asked, no straps meant no shrugging it off, and her harness was integrated into her clothing, she didn’t fancy taking her shirt off just to get at her pack.
Eula thrust both arms out in front of him. “Like you’re deploying your chute,” he explained.
She copied him, dubiously, and the pack neatly dropped off. She turned and stared down at it. He laughed.
-----
While the others sorted through the supplies, Darvish headed back in the direction they’d come from.
The Doctor trotted after him. The safari leader stopped and waved his compass around, strode a few feet farther and tried again.
The Doctor sidled up and looked over the shorter man's broad shoulder to see the compass lazily spinning in a circle. His eyebrows jumped up.
“Can you turn that upside down?” he asked.
Darvish looked at him with a confused frown, but turned the compass over. The Doctor squatted down and looked up at the face. Unlike a clock, which would have kept spinning in the same direction, the compass had reversed, maintaining its bearing. “Fascinating.”
“What is?” Darvish asked, turning the compass back over and looked at it. It wobbled to a stop, reversed, and started turning again.
“Magnetic instability, we knew that,” Darvish said. He shrugged. He walked a few meters farther and checked again.
“Nice compass,” the Doctor said. “Antique?”
Darvish rubbed a long thumb over the gold etched pocketwatch case. “Yes, my great-grandfather gave it to me. He got it from his ancestor. Most compasses are electronic now, they just stop working here.”
The Doctor nodded, quiff bobbing. He looked back and noticed they were just beyond the point where the trams had first lost power.
He looked down in time to see the compass had settled, neatly pointing north/south.
Darvish spread out the map on the ground, anchoring it with one foot as he oriented to the compass. His quick eyes measured the direction of the trams, checking the locations on the map.
The Doctor watched his eyes flick over the head of the forest as he picked out landmarks. Darvish checked the map again, then rolled it up.
“So what’s fascinating?” he asked, still crouched, looking up at the Doctor.
The Doctor grinned, “Watch your compass as we re-enter the Zone.”
Darvish gave him a dubious look, but flicked open his compass again and held it out in front of himself as they returned to the others.
As soon as they hit the Zone, the compass disc started swirling in a circle in the water.
Darvish stopped, shook the compass. It didn’t jump back and forth, but settled neatly into the same, steady, directional whirl.
The Doctor tapped the compass. “That’s not random. The Zone’s a magnetic vortex.”
-----
Amy, Rory, Bill, and Eula piled the non-functioning electronics, the survey cameras and lasers and extra supplies back into one of the trams. They’d only be taking what essentials they could carry.
On the other side of them, Erik, Pickles, Eldon, and Garon heaved and tipped one of the empty trams up onto its side, then toppled it slowly over, lowering it to the ground, upside down.
“Alright, everyone give us a hand!” Erik barked out. Jute and George stood guard at the edges of the clearing, watching outward, even in this peaceful glade. The rest of the group gathered around the overturned tram.
“Grab an edge,” Erik instructed. Amy and Rory, mystified, grabbed one rounded-off edge, with Eula and Bill on either side of them. “On the count of three, lift,” Erik ordered.
They all heaved, picking up the upside down tram. It was surprisingly light with all of them helping. With some stumbles and missteps, they followed directions and slowly walked it sideways, lifted it high, and settled it onto the top of the filled tram.
Erik and Pickles darted around and buckled down the edges, forming a protective clamshell for their supplies. Bill dusted her hands off and gave a satisfied nod.
Pickles and Eula started sorting through the remaining supplies, handing out necessities, piling the non-essentials into the remaining tram.
Pickles tossed Darvish a backpack and an old fashioned pair of binoculars. Eula twirled a finger at the Doctor, who promptly spun completely in place, earning a laugh, before Eula grabbed his shoulders and stopped him, clipping his pack onto his harness clips.
The Doctor shrugged his shoulders and tugged at his harness to settle things comfortably. Rory looked up at the sky that showed through the tall trees. He shaded his eyes, the sun was just past its zenith.
He looped his canteen over his shoulder, gave it a shake to check its content. It was full, and reassuringly heavy. He unclipped his machete from his belt and weighted it in his hand.
Eula looped a canteen around the Doctor’s neck, and clipped a bottle of bug spray onto his belt. The Doctor forbearingly stood there grinning, allowing himself to be kitted out like a lifesize doll.
Pickles went around, checking each person, ensuring each was carrying the necessities. Food, water, bugspray, weapons, ammunition, camping supplies and sundries in the packs; and supplying whatever was lacking.
Finally he and Eula nodded to each other and Erik yelled everyone over to help seal the last of the supplies between the two remaining trams.
The trams clicked neatly together. Amy and Rory stood back and stared at the two neat, white, square clamshells that housed all their supplies. Sitting incongruously side by side, looking completely out of place in this ferny forest setting.
“That should, hopefully, keep anything out until we come back for them,” Eldon said, wiping his hands on his khaki covered thighs.
“Assuming we do come back,” Garon said, unlimbering his large bore rifle and chambering a round. “Only two people have ever made it out of here alive.”
“You would have to remind us of that,” Eldon said as he walked by and smacked his twin on the back of the head.
All the hunters started inspecting their weapons.
Amy and Rory gathered around the Doctor. “What do you think is in there?” Amy asked, peering into the forest before them. Rory looked worried beside her.
“I have absolutely no idea,” the Doctor said, staring pensively with them.
“But,” he clapped his hands, startling them, and lifted a triumphant finger, “this time we’re prepared!” He handed each of them an ipod. He darted through the crowd and started handing out ipods from his copious pockets, like a magician.
“Keep the earpieces in your ears at all times,” he instructed. “It won’t interfere with your hearing, but it should block any attempt by the ‘monster’ to stop us.”
He handed the last ipod to Erik. Erik scowled at him, but looped the cord over his neck and inserted the earpieces. “You sure these will work?” he asked gruffly.
The Doctor bounced. “They’ve worked on everyone so far.”
Erik nodded.
Rory watched as Amy tapped her earpods into her ears, and nodded. She shrugged her shoulders. Food satchel looped around one side, canteen on the other and ipod in front, “We’re all going to end up with chaffed necks,” she said.
“Also,” the Doctor said loudly, holding up his finger again to gain everyone’s attention, “Everybody should have a life support unit. Clip yours on your belt or on your front somewhere, if we need them, we’ll need them fast.”
Several backpacks clicked off and fell with a thump as people rummaged in their supplies for their medical kits. Triangular life support units were clipped on belts and jackets, each person checking their own to make sure it was in working order. No one wanted to be the one who relied on a dud life support unit.
Rory frowned, then sidled up to the Doctor. He leaned closer, voice low. “What about you, Doctor?” Rory looked at him worriedly. “These are all calibrated for a single heart, like humans or Trelwins have.”
The Doctor smiled at him. He patted his life support unit on his belt under his jacket. He lifted it to show Rory. “I calibrated one for me, just in case.” He tapped the circular Gallifreyan symbol drawn on one corner of the triangular casing. He suddenly frowned in thought. “Don’t let anyone else use it,” he instructed, worried.
Rory nodded. “I’ll let the others know.”
The Doctor grinned at him and clapped him on the shoulder.
Darvish waved his ax, Erik unshouldered his spare gun, and the two leaders gathered everyone’s attention. They looked around and caught everyone's eye, one by one.
“Right,” Erik said. “Let’s go.”
The light slanted through the trees, just after noon. Dust motes danced.
They all moved out silently. Leaving the trams behind.
The Trelwins all swarmed up the nearest tree, heading for the high ground.
-----
The forest wasn’t exactly light and airy, but it was far less cluttered than the jungles they’d been traveling through. With the high trees, and ferny undergrowth, it gave the impression of a state park. More of the ground here was clear, more sunlight got through, although it was more of a bright twilight than direct sun.
The Trelwins brachiated along above them, swinging from branch to branch in the high understory. They all spread out, traveling in a loose cluster where they could all see each other, and stayed mostly together, but could cover more ground with their eyes, looking for anything that might tell them where the shuttle had crashed, or if there’d been any survivors.
Not to mention any clue as to what the monster was.
A couple of hours in, Darvish climbed one of the huge boulders that littered the area, shielding his eyes, scanning ahead.
A stray sunbeam spotlighted his short, broad shouldered form, the ax strapped across his back, giant trees and mossy boulders around him, dust motes dancing like fairy lights. All he lacked was a beard to complete the ‘Dwarf Lord” image, Amy thought, as she grinned at the imagery.
He called something down to Erik, who turned and looked where he pointed, with his binoculars. He nodded and they subtly led the group off in another direction. Darvish expertly slid down the boulder on his rump and landed on his feet.
They walked for hours along hardpacked ground, through cool ferns, they didn’t see much in the way of animal life. Just a few small lizards in the brush. One of those puffy animals jumped out of a clump of bushes, wailed at the Doctor, and bolted away. Making everyone laugh.
The air hung still, the forest smelled of dust and mulch, and an underlying freshness that Amy could only identify as the breath of the trees.
It was strangely peaceful, almost churchlike.
-----
“Flower Hair!”
Amy jerked out of a meditative doze. Who had called her that? She glared around, shaking off a feeling of disorientation. She was surprised to find she’d almost walked facefirst into a sharp tangle of downed branches.
She diverted around them, and looked around at the others. They all seemed to be in a similar dozy state. None of them were looking at her.
She sidled up to the Doctor. He was avidly looking around, hands in his pockets, cataloging everything he saw with a faint smile on his face.
“Doctor?” He turned to look at her. She nodded at the others. Erik and Darvish seemed to be less effected, but the Brothers, Bill and Jute and Eula seemed to be strolling along without a care in the world. Weapons were held at the ready, but not alertly, they all seemed very peaceful, almost distracted.
“What’s going on?” Amy whispered.
The Doctor looked calmly around at the others. “It’s the Zone,” he said. “A magnetic vortex can alter brainwaves, increase the Alpha and Theta brainwaves, cause a meditative state. They’re fine. They’re not asleep, just peaceful.” He shrugged.
“What if we’re attacked?” she asked. She noted Rory walking along on the right flank in front of them, machete held casually, he seemed alert, but unfussed. She couldn’t tell if he was actually affected.
“They’re still aware,” the Doctor said, nodding a negligent head at the others. “If we were attacked they’d snap out of it fast enough.” He grinned wryly. “Meanwhile, it’s a nice day for a stroll.” He cocked out an elbow to her.
She grinned and tucked her hand into it.
“Did you just call me Flower Hair?” she suddenly asked, frowning at him.
His sparse eyebrows popped up, then his dimple flashed in a grin. “Flower Hair? No.” He laughed. “But I might from now on.” He tweaked a lock of her red hair. She poked him in the ribs.
-----
They didn’t find much the first day, and spent the night in hammocks strung from the trees. It was the best night’s sleep Amy had ever had.
Early the next morning, Erik yelled and they all rushed forward to see what he’d found. It was a twisted bit of shuttle material, not much bigger than his hand, possibly thrown off during the crash.
They all spread out to look for the crash lane. The Doctor signed up to Nelda for the Trelwins to help look.
Half of them kept their eyes on the treetops, looking for damage, while the rest kept their eyes on the area around them, wary for danger.
It wasn’t until she looked down that Amy noticed an incongruity among the trees. As she walked by, the space between the trees didn’t shift like it should. She stopped.
Bill walked up beside her, large gun cradled across huge arms. “What’s wrong?”
Amy nodded her head toward the trees on the side of the clear area they were traversing, frowning, still trying to figure out what was going on.
Bill looked up. The entire background of the trees moved. Amy’s eyes went wide.
Bill smiled, “It’s a Herbivore.”
Amy turned and gave her a puzzled glare. It was some sort of optical illusion was what it was. How could the whole forest move?
Then it moved again, and suddenly Amy realized she wasn’t focusing large enough.
It looked like a cross between a buffalo, and a house. It roved behind the trees. Eighteen feet tall at the withers. Covered in mottled brown and green suede that blended into the forest.
It wasn’t moving very fast, as if it wasn’t in a hurry, and had no reason to be.
Amy stumbled back several paces, just trying to get the whole thing into her field of vision. Jute caught her as she stumbled over a branch. “Careful, miss.”
Rory trotted up, his eyes stuck on the walking illusion behind the trees. He grabbed Amy’s arm, part in support, part in surprise.
The Doctor gallumped up and stood beaming, wringing his hands in excitement, practically squeaking with joy. He waved a hand out at it and turned a wide, awestruck eyes at them, as if they hadn't seen it too.
‘It’s a Forest Herbivore,” Bill explained for the “biologists’” benefit. “They’re smaller than the plains ones.”
“Smaller?!” Amy squeaked.
The vision walked slowly along behind the trees, the optical illusion of its passing creating a ripple effect as its hide passed from tree to tree. It was amazingly silent for such a huge and obviously heavy creature.
“We just walked right past it!” Amy yelped.
Jute nodded, shouldering his rifle. “They’re not dangerous,” he said in his slow, laconic voice. “As long as you stay out of their way.”
As punctuation, there was a thunderous ripping noise as the Herbivore casually tore a large limb off one of the redwood trees and slowly started masticating.
It sounded like someone chewing a tree. Appropriately enough.
The Doctor’s eyes were sparkling so bright Amy expected him to explode.
Mad Birds!
Amy winced. Who was yelling at her? She glared around at the other hunters, suspiciously. Something bumped on her head, distracting her, a twig, with leaves attached, twirled down in front of her. She looked up.
Nelda stood in the canopy far overhead. Long white arms waving, bouncing up and down. When she had Amy’s attention, she pointed. Amy turned to look behind her.
A black cloud boiled through the trees. Amy grabbed the Doctor’s arm. “Look!”
The sound hit them, like a shockwave, the frantic “fwumping” of thousands of wings, the raucous chatter and screams of a solid mass of birds.
“Get down!” the Doctor yelled. He yanked Amy and Rory down and covered their heads with his arms. The cloud broke over them in a wave, small hard bodies pelted them, the slicing flap of frantic wings, the grasp of claws, the sting of beaks.
The hunters shouted and yelled, Amy looked out from under the Doctor’s arms and saw them scrambling around, trying to take shelter, raising their guns and realizing it would be futile to fire. Birds whirled and dove and rose and shrieked all around them, with no direction, total chaos. Bodies thumped and pelted them like overlarge sand, wings batted at them, claws tangled in hair. One of her earbuds slipped out and Amy fumbled frantically to reinsert it.
“What’s wrong with them?” Rory yelled over the cacophony. The bird’s weren’t attacking, there was no coordination to them, they collided with each other in midair, haring off in every direction, completely random. The hunters just happened to be in the way.
The Doctor squeezed their shoulders, one palm pushing Amy’s head down as another wave barraged them. “They’re scared!” he yelled.
“What of?” Rory yelled, craning his head up to look for some huge bird or other predator attacking. But all he could see was a shifting pattern of black.
Suddenly the ground jumped with a huge thump. A horrible, deep, reverberating cry, shook the trees.
“Look out!” Jute yelled. “Get out of the way!”
Behind them the lumbering behemoth of the herbivore shook its head as a wave of birds flew into its eyes, boiled around it, slapping it with panicked wings, like a swarm of bees.
“Move!” Bill bellowed, and practically swept them all up in a running tackle.
The herbivore stamped and staggered, and broke into a lumbering, ground-shaking run, shouldering trees out of its path. Straight for them.
Hunters swiped at birds and ran sideways, stumbling on the heaving ground.
“Don’t shoot!” Darvish bellowed over the cacophony, barely heard.
Amy scrambled, she sprinted up and looked behind her, up. into a face as big as a movie theater screen. An oddly gentle looking face, but filled with pure dumb animal panic.
She weaved to the side, shoving the Doctor ahead of her. She barely missed being squashed by a huge, blunt-footed leg that stomped by her, the size of a tree itself. The herbivore galloped past like a dinosaur, massive muscles rolling under thick suede, each step heaving the ground.
She fell and rolled, and stared up in disbelief, dust choked the air, bird screams receded as the birds scattered in the wake of the giant mammal.
Three galloping strides took the gigantic browser across the clearing and trees tore like vines as it continued, unimpeded, through the forest on the other side.
She lay there panting. Dirt in her eyes. Grimacing at the bird droppings on her jacket. She ran a hand cautiously through her hair.
“What the hell was that?” George’s yell echoed across the suddenly silent clearing. The hunters stumbled to their feet, grimacing at the churned ground, spattered with bird droppings. Feathery corpses who’d not survived midair collisions littered the ground, and giant footprints shoved up cracking hardpacked divots, their edges jutting like broken concrete.
A large limb tumbled off one of the shattered trees, landing with a crash, causing two of the Brothers to jump back with a curse.
“Everyone all right?” Darvish yelled, as they all instinctively took stock. “Sound off!”
“Fine!”
“Fine!”
They all yelled, one by one. Amy looked up into the trees searching for the Trelwins. Nelda, Zeke, and Chitchi were clinging to narrow sections of the high boles, looking shaken, but okay.
“Good thing they weren’t bats,” the Doctor said, shaking out his hair. Brushing away twigs and leaves.
Amy grimaced down at her jacket. “Eww! Bad enough.” She pulled her jacket away, looking in disgust at the white splatter mark.
“Here,” Bill threw a handful of dirt on the messy stain and rubbed it in. “Give that a few minutes, then brush it off.”
Amy looked up at her, grimacing again. “Thanks.”
“What caused that?” Rory asked again, kneeling to scoop up a handful of dirt to apply to his own stains. He looked up at the Doctor. “Is something trying to drive us off?”
That sent a frisson through the group. They all looked at each other uncomfortably. Eula joined them, and dabbed antiseptic on a variety of cuts and scratches, from his medical kit. They all looked at the Doctor.
“That?” the Doctor said, waving in dismissal. “Nah, they were startled by something, or they probably blundered into the zone then panicked when the magnetic field messed up their sense of direction,” he said, not very convincingly. “They’ll either blunder out again, or settle down here and adapt. Ouch!” He hissed as Eula dabbed antiseptic on a scratch on his cheek.
“Best to be careful,” Eula said, spraying a bit of sealant on the cut then moving on to the others.
Erik stalked up, beyond him, Darvish went to check on the rest of the group on the other side of the clearing. “You lot all right?” Erik asked in his booming voice, his eyes quickly flicked assessingly over the Doctor.
The Doctor bristled. “I’d be better if I had my sonic screwdriver.”
Erik ignored him. Pointedly.
“Over here!” George suddenly yelled from the far side of the clearing. They all turned to find the Brother holding up something black.
At first Amy thought it was another dead bird. They were a metallic black, about the size of a starling. But as everyone converged on him, she could see it was a piece of metal.
Darvish beat them to him, and George handed the twisted bit of shuttle to the Safari leader, then said something and gestured down the trampled path where the herbivore had charged through the trees. Farther in, sunlight broke through, where the tops of the trees had been sheared off.
-----
They followed the herbivore’s path and found the shuttle crash lane. The treetops had been decapitated high overhead, in a clearly delineated line, straight southeast, cutting across the herbivore’s path. It was a rat’s nest of damage, a tangle of downed branches and sheered boles. Severed treetops caught, suspended, against their neighbors, the whole line gradually getting lower.
They followed the crash lane for an hour, walking to the side, rather than under it, to avoid the debris.
Amy, Rory, and the Doctor picked their way around a huge downed branch full of spikey points that had been flung wide into the ferns.
“Why did you ask if something was trying to drive us off, Rory?” the Doctor asked abruptly, picking his way across spikey branches.
Rory looked back at him, careful where he placed his own feet. “It’s just this feeling I have. Like something’s watching me. It’s been getting stronger the farther we go in.”
Amy looked back. “Me too.” she said, waiting for them on the other side. Her hands went to her hips. “It’s like someone’s trying to talk to me, in the back of my head.”
“Yeah,” Rory said. “It’s creepy.”
Rory untangled his foot from the last branch, and looked up, right at a large, grey skinned tree that was completely twisted around on its bole. “And now we have twisty trees!” he said in disgust.
“It’s just the electromagnetic vortex here, changing the way they grow” the Doctor said, grinning and patting him on the shoulder as he stumbled his way out of the last of the ferns. “It’s getting stronger the farther in we go. Nothing to worry about.”
Amy and Rory both gave him dubious looks.
The forest started to become more jungle the farther in they went. Gnarled jungle trees, twisted on their boles, becoming interspersed with the larger redwoods. More undergrowth. They had to start using their machetes to hack a path through the ferns.
As the increasingly denser canopy deepened the air to twilight under the trees, they noticed something glimmering in the forest. Not the shine of metal, but a soft glow. Coming from a point ahead.
Darvish and Erik waved them all together. Silent, weapons out, they passed through the last line of trees into another clear area, the strange light gleamed off treetrunks behind them.
A ghost hung in the air before them.
-----
It was ten feet tall, hanging several feet off the ground. A long, attenuated form, humanoid, indistinct, apparently wearing a long flowing tabard.
“Huh, there are ghosts,” the Doctor muttered.
Erik glared at him.
It bobbed very slightly in the breeze, head down as if asleep. It made no sound, gave no shadow beyond the faint glow it emitted. It seemed to have no mass. Yet it was clearly there.
“Look,” Pickles gestured with his gun, quietly. They all looked where he was pointing, to see another ghost, twenty feet away.
“And there,” Eldon said, pointing his gun in the opposite direction. Another ghost, and beyond it, the glimmer of another.
A line of ghosts, faintly curving.
The Doctor plucked at his lip and studied them, eyes narrow.
“Trelwin have elves?” Rory asked, keeping his voice low.
The Doctor looked at him, startled, then looked back at the figure. The “ghosts” looked like vague, semi-transparent energy versions of the Trelwin. Except these Trelwin were elegant, upright, and wore clothes, like seeing an elvin or fairy version of the Trelwin.
The Doctor grinned like a madman. “Why not? Most thinking species have mythological creatures of some kind.”
“They’re almost beautiful,” Amy said. “But they are pretty blurry.”
George crept forward hesitantly and poked the barrel of his gun at the apparition.
The barrel touched it. The apparition screamed and leapt, flashing red, demonic eyes and teeth, sharp claws. Red lightning zapped down the barrel and exploded, throwing George backward into a tree with a crack like a gunshot. He was dead before he slithered to the ground.
“Don’t touch them!” the Doctor and Erik screamed.
“They’re energized!” the Doctor added, herding Amy and Rory behind him.
The entire ring of apparitions turned red and started advancing, converging on their location.
“This isn’t good, yeah?” Amy said.
“This isn’t good, no,” Rory replied, grabbing her arm and hauling her backward.
The air turned red with the advancing ghosts.
“Run!” the Doctor yelled.
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Eula handed her a backpack. “Thanks,” she took it without looking and stared up at the trees, they looked a bit like short redwoods. Comparatively short that is. Any of the big “home” trees on this planet would dwarf them. But they were straight, and tall, and had that rough reddish bark.
Suddenly she frowned and looked around. She turned to Rory as he staggered over, adjusting the weight of his pack. “Why do I feel like we’re in the forest of Endor?”
Rory looked up and looked around and laughed. “Yeah, it does look like it, a bit.”
“No speeders though,” Amy sighed looking at the downed tram. Bill was pulling out the last of their supplies, piling them on the ground to be distributed. Amy heaved up her backpack and went to pull it on.
She stared down in consternation. It didn’t have any straps. It was just the pack, with a couple of clips at the top and bottom. “How am I supposed to wear this?”
Eula looked up from where he was helping Bill stack supplies. He grinned. “Here,” he held out a hand and she passed him the pack. “They’re designed to clip onto the chute harness,” he explained. Going behind her and clipping the backpack to her shoulders.
He stepped back, and she shrugged. The pack had been heavy, she hadn’t looked forward to lugging it around. But with the weight distributed across her chute harness it was a lot lighter and more comfortable.
“How do I take it off?” she asked, no straps meant no shrugging it off, and her harness was integrated into her clothing, she didn’t fancy taking her shirt off just to get at her pack.
Eula thrust both arms out in front of him. “Like you’re deploying your chute,” he explained.
She copied him, dubiously, and the pack neatly dropped off. She turned and stared down at it. He laughed.
-----
While the others sorted through the supplies, Darvish headed back in the direction they’d come from.
The Doctor trotted after him. The safari leader stopped and waved his compass around, strode a few feet farther and tried again.
The Doctor sidled up and looked over the shorter man's broad shoulder to see the compass lazily spinning in a circle. His eyebrows jumped up.
“Can you turn that upside down?” he asked.
Darvish looked at him with a confused frown, but turned the compass over. The Doctor squatted down and looked up at the face. Unlike a clock, which would have kept spinning in the same direction, the compass had reversed, maintaining its bearing. “Fascinating.”
“What is?” Darvish asked, turning the compass back over and looked at it. It wobbled to a stop, reversed, and started turning again.
“Magnetic instability, we knew that,” Darvish said. He shrugged. He walked a few meters farther and checked again.
“Nice compass,” the Doctor said. “Antique?”
Darvish rubbed a long thumb over the gold etched pocketwatch case. “Yes, my great-grandfather gave it to me. He got it from his ancestor. Most compasses are electronic now, they just stop working here.”
The Doctor nodded, quiff bobbing. He looked back and noticed they were just beyond the point where the trams had first lost power.
He looked down in time to see the compass had settled, neatly pointing north/south.
Darvish spread out the map on the ground, anchoring it with one foot as he oriented to the compass. His quick eyes measured the direction of the trams, checking the locations on the map.
The Doctor watched his eyes flick over the head of the forest as he picked out landmarks. Darvish checked the map again, then rolled it up.
“So what’s fascinating?” he asked, still crouched, looking up at the Doctor.
The Doctor grinned, “Watch your compass as we re-enter the Zone.”
Darvish gave him a dubious look, but flicked open his compass again and held it out in front of himself as they returned to the others.
As soon as they hit the Zone, the compass disc started swirling in a circle in the water.
Darvish stopped, shook the compass. It didn’t jump back and forth, but settled neatly into the same, steady, directional whirl.
The Doctor tapped the compass. “That’s not random. The Zone’s a magnetic vortex.”
-----
Amy, Rory, Bill, and Eula piled the non-functioning electronics, the survey cameras and lasers and extra supplies back into one of the trams. They’d only be taking what essentials they could carry.
On the other side of them, Erik, Pickles, Eldon, and Garon heaved and tipped one of the empty trams up onto its side, then toppled it slowly over, lowering it to the ground, upside down.
“Alright, everyone give us a hand!” Erik barked out. Jute and George stood guard at the edges of the clearing, watching outward, even in this peaceful glade. The rest of the group gathered around the overturned tram.
“Grab an edge,” Erik instructed. Amy and Rory, mystified, grabbed one rounded-off edge, with Eula and Bill on either side of them. “On the count of three, lift,” Erik ordered.
They all heaved, picking up the upside down tram. It was surprisingly light with all of them helping. With some stumbles and missteps, they followed directions and slowly walked it sideways, lifted it high, and settled it onto the top of the filled tram.
Erik and Pickles darted around and buckled down the edges, forming a protective clamshell for their supplies. Bill dusted her hands off and gave a satisfied nod.
Pickles and Eula started sorting through the remaining supplies, handing out necessities, piling the non-essentials into the remaining tram.
Pickles tossed Darvish a backpack and an old fashioned pair of binoculars. Eula twirled a finger at the Doctor, who promptly spun completely in place, earning a laugh, before Eula grabbed his shoulders and stopped him, clipping his pack onto his harness clips.
The Doctor shrugged his shoulders and tugged at his harness to settle things comfortably. Rory looked up at the sky that showed through the tall trees. He shaded his eyes, the sun was just past its zenith.
He looped his canteen over his shoulder, gave it a shake to check its content. It was full, and reassuringly heavy. He unclipped his machete from his belt and weighted it in his hand.
Eula looped a canteen around the Doctor’s neck, and clipped a bottle of bug spray onto his belt. The Doctor forbearingly stood there grinning, allowing himself to be kitted out like a lifesize doll.
Pickles went around, checking each person, ensuring each was carrying the necessities. Food, water, bugspray, weapons, ammunition, camping supplies and sundries in the packs; and supplying whatever was lacking.
Finally he and Eula nodded to each other and Erik yelled everyone over to help seal the last of the supplies between the two remaining trams.
The trams clicked neatly together. Amy and Rory stood back and stared at the two neat, white, square clamshells that housed all their supplies. Sitting incongruously side by side, looking completely out of place in this ferny forest setting.
“That should, hopefully, keep anything out until we come back for them,” Eldon said, wiping his hands on his khaki covered thighs.
“Assuming we do come back,” Garon said, unlimbering his large bore rifle and chambering a round. “Only two people have ever made it out of here alive.”
“You would have to remind us of that,” Eldon said as he walked by and smacked his twin on the back of the head.
All the hunters started inspecting their weapons.
Amy and Rory gathered around the Doctor. “What do you think is in there?” Amy asked, peering into the forest before them. Rory looked worried beside her.
“I have absolutely no idea,” the Doctor said, staring pensively with them.
“But,” he clapped his hands, startling them, and lifted a triumphant finger, “this time we’re prepared!” He handed each of them an ipod. He darted through the crowd and started handing out ipods from his copious pockets, like a magician.
“Keep the earpieces in your ears at all times,” he instructed. “It won’t interfere with your hearing, but it should block any attempt by the ‘monster’ to stop us.”
He handed the last ipod to Erik. Erik scowled at him, but looped the cord over his neck and inserted the earpieces. “You sure these will work?” he asked gruffly.
The Doctor bounced. “They’ve worked on everyone so far.”
Erik nodded.
Rory watched as Amy tapped her earpods into her ears, and nodded. She shrugged her shoulders. Food satchel looped around one side, canteen on the other and ipod in front, “We’re all going to end up with chaffed necks,” she said.
“Also,” the Doctor said loudly, holding up his finger again to gain everyone’s attention, “Everybody should have a life support unit. Clip yours on your belt or on your front somewhere, if we need them, we’ll need them fast.”
Several backpacks clicked off and fell with a thump as people rummaged in their supplies for their medical kits. Triangular life support units were clipped on belts and jackets, each person checking their own to make sure it was in working order. No one wanted to be the one who relied on a dud life support unit.
Rory frowned, then sidled up to the Doctor. He leaned closer, voice low. “What about you, Doctor?” Rory looked at him worriedly. “These are all calibrated for a single heart, like humans or Trelwins have.”
The Doctor smiled at him. He patted his life support unit on his belt under his jacket. He lifted it to show Rory. “I calibrated one for me, just in case.” He tapped the circular Gallifreyan symbol drawn on one corner of the triangular casing. He suddenly frowned in thought. “Don’t let anyone else use it,” he instructed, worried.
Rory nodded. “I’ll let the others know.”
The Doctor grinned at him and clapped him on the shoulder.
Darvish waved his ax, Erik unshouldered his spare gun, and the two leaders gathered everyone’s attention. They looked around and caught everyone's eye, one by one.
“Right,” Erik said. “Let’s go.”
The light slanted through the trees, just after noon. Dust motes danced.
They all moved out silently. Leaving the trams behind.
The Trelwins all swarmed up the nearest tree, heading for the high ground.
-----
The forest wasn’t exactly light and airy, but it was far less cluttered than the jungles they’d been traveling through. With the high trees, and ferny undergrowth, it gave the impression of a state park. More of the ground here was clear, more sunlight got through, although it was more of a bright twilight than direct sun.
The Trelwins brachiated along above them, swinging from branch to branch in the high understory. They all spread out, traveling in a loose cluster where they could all see each other, and stayed mostly together, but could cover more ground with their eyes, looking for anything that might tell them where the shuttle had crashed, or if there’d been any survivors.
Not to mention any clue as to what the monster was.
A couple of hours in, Darvish climbed one of the huge boulders that littered the area, shielding his eyes, scanning ahead.
A stray sunbeam spotlighted his short, broad shouldered form, the ax strapped across his back, giant trees and mossy boulders around him, dust motes dancing like fairy lights. All he lacked was a beard to complete the ‘Dwarf Lord” image, Amy thought, as she grinned at the imagery.
He called something down to Erik, who turned and looked where he pointed, with his binoculars. He nodded and they subtly led the group off in another direction. Darvish expertly slid down the boulder on his rump and landed on his feet.
They walked for hours along hardpacked ground, through cool ferns, they didn’t see much in the way of animal life. Just a few small lizards in the brush. One of those puffy animals jumped out of a clump of bushes, wailed at the Doctor, and bolted away. Making everyone laugh.
The air hung still, the forest smelled of dust and mulch, and an underlying freshness that Amy could only identify as the breath of the trees.
It was strangely peaceful, almost churchlike.
-----
“Flower Hair!”
Amy jerked out of a meditative doze. Who had called her that? She glared around, shaking off a feeling of disorientation. She was surprised to find she’d almost walked facefirst into a sharp tangle of downed branches.
She diverted around them, and looked around at the others. They all seemed to be in a similar dozy state. None of them were looking at her.
She sidled up to the Doctor. He was avidly looking around, hands in his pockets, cataloging everything he saw with a faint smile on his face.
“Doctor?” He turned to look at her. She nodded at the others. Erik and Darvish seemed to be less effected, but the Brothers, Bill and Jute and Eula seemed to be strolling along without a care in the world. Weapons were held at the ready, but not alertly, they all seemed very peaceful, almost distracted.
“What’s going on?” Amy whispered.
The Doctor looked calmly around at the others. “It’s the Zone,” he said. “A magnetic vortex can alter brainwaves, increase the Alpha and Theta brainwaves, cause a meditative state. They’re fine. They’re not asleep, just peaceful.” He shrugged.
“What if we’re attacked?” she asked. She noted Rory walking along on the right flank in front of them, machete held casually, he seemed alert, but unfussed. She couldn’t tell if he was actually affected.
“They’re still aware,” the Doctor said, nodding a negligent head at the others. “If we were attacked they’d snap out of it fast enough.” He grinned wryly. “Meanwhile, it’s a nice day for a stroll.” He cocked out an elbow to her.
She grinned and tucked her hand into it.
“Did you just call me Flower Hair?” she suddenly asked, frowning at him.
His sparse eyebrows popped up, then his dimple flashed in a grin. “Flower Hair? No.” He laughed. “But I might from now on.” He tweaked a lock of her red hair. She poked him in the ribs.
-----
They didn’t find much the first day, and spent the night in hammocks strung from the trees. It was the best night’s sleep Amy had ever had.
Early the next morning, Erik yelled and they all rushed forward to see what he’d found. It was a twisted bit of shuttle material, not much bigger than his hand, possibly thrown off during the crash.
They all spread out to look for the crash lane. The Doctor signed up to Nelda for the Trelwins to help look.
Half of them kept their eyes on the treetops, looking for damage, while the rest kept their eyes on the area around them, wary for danger.
It wasn’t until she looked down that Amy noticed an incongruity among the trees. As she walked by, the space between the trees didn’t shift like it should. She stopped.
Bill walked up beside her, large gun cradled across huge arms. “What’s wrong?”
Amy nodded her head toward the trees on the side of the clear area they were traversing, frowning, still trying to figure out what was going on.
Bill looked up. The entire background of the trees moved. Amy’s eyes went wide.
Bill smiled, “It’s a Herbivore.”
Amy turned and gave her a puzzled glare. It was some sort of optical illusion was what it was. How could the whole forest move?
Then it moved again, and suddenly Amy realized she wasn’t focusing large enough.
It looked like a cross between a buffalo, and a house. It roved behind the trees. Eighteen feet tall at the withers. Covered in mottled brown and green suede that blended into the forest.
It wasn’t moving very fast, as if it wasn’t in a hurry, and had no reason to be.
Amy stumbled back several paces, just trying to get the whole thing into her field of vision. Jute caught her as she stumbled over a branch. “Careful, miss.”
Rory trotted up, his eyes stuck on the walking illusion behind the trees. He grabbed Amy’s arm, part in support, part in surprise.
The Doctor gallumped up and stood beaming, wringing his hands in excitement, practically squeaking with joy. He waved a hand out at it and turned a wide, awestruck eyes at them, as if they hadn't seen it too.
‘It’s a Forest Herbivore,” Bill explained for the “biologists’” benefit. “They’re smaller than the plains ones.”
“Smaller?!” Amy squeaked.
The vision walked slowly along behind the trees, the optical illusion of its passing creating a ripple effect as its hide passed from tree to tree. It was amazingly silent for such a huge and obviously heavy creature.
“We just walked right past it!” Amy yelped.
Jute nodded, shouldering his rifle. “They’re not dangerous,” he said in his slow, laconic voice. “As long as you stay out of their way.”
As punctuation, there was a thunderous ripping noise as the Herbivore casually tore a large limb off one of the redwood trees and slowly started masticating.
It sounded like someone chewing a tree. Appropriately enough.
The Doctor’s eyes were sparkling so bright Amy expected him to explode.
Mad Birds!
Amy winced. Who was yelling at her? She glared around at the other hunters, suspiciously. Something bumped on her head, distracting her, a twig, with leaves attached, twirled down in front of her. She looked up.
Nelda stood in the canopy far overhead. Long white arms waving, bouncing up and down. When she had Amy’s attention, she pointed. Amy turned to look behind her.
A black cloud boiled through the trees. Amy grabbed the Doctor’s arm. “Look!”
The sound hit them, like a shockwave, the frantic “fwumping” of thousands of wings, the raucous chatter and screams of a solid mass of birds.
“Get down!” the Doctor yelled. He yanked Amy and Rory down and covered their heads with his arms. The cloud broke over them in a wave, small hard bodies pelted them, the slicing flap of frantic wings, the grasp of claws, the sting of beaks.
The hunters shouted and yelled, Amy looked out from under the Doctor’s arms and saw them scrambling around, trying to take shelter, raising their guns and realizing it would be futile to fire. Birds whirled and dove and rose and shrieked all around them, with no direction, total chaos. Bodies thumped and pelted them like overlarge sand, wings batted at them, claws tangled in hair. One of her earbuds slipped out and Amy fumbled frantically to reinsert it.
“What’s wrong with them?” Rory yelled over the cacophony. The bird’s weren’t attacking, there was no coordination to them, they collided with each other in midair, haring off in every direction, completely random. The hunters just happened to be in the way.
The Doctor squeezed their shoulders, one palm pushing Amy’s head down as another wave barraged them. “They’re scared!” he yelled.
“What of?” Rory yelled, craning his head up to look for some huge bird or other predator attacking. But all he could see was a shifting pattern of black.
Suddenly the ground jumped with a huge thump. A horrible, deep, reverberating cry, shook the trees.
“Look out!” Jute yelled. “Get out of the way!”
Behind them the lumbering behemoth of the herbivore shook its head as a wave of birds flew into its eyes, boiled around it, slapping it with panicked wings, like a swarm of bees.
“Move!” Bill bellowed, and practically swept them all up in a running tackle.
The herbivore stamped and staggered, and broke into a lumbering, ground-shaking run, shouldering trees out of its path. Straight for them.
Hunters swiped at birds and ran sideways, stumbling on the heaving ground.
“Don’t shoot!” Darvish bellowed over the cacophony, barely heard.
Amy scrambled, she sprinted up and looked behind her, up. into a face as big as a movie theater screen. An oddly gentle looking face, but filled with pure dumb animal panic.
She weaved to the side, shoving the Doctor ahead of her. She barely missed being squashed by a huge, blunt-footed leg that stomped by her, the size of a tree itself. The herbivore galloped past like a dinosaur, massive muscles rolling under thick suede, each step heaving the ground.
She fell and rolled, and stared up in disbelief, dust choked the air, bird screams receded as the birds scattered in the wake of the giant mammal.
Three galloping strides took the gigantic browser across the clearing and trees tore like vines as it continued, unimpeded, through the forest on the other side.
She lay there panting. Dirt in her eyes. Grimacing at the bird droppings on her jacket. She ran a hand cautiously through her hair.
“What the hell was that?” George’s yell echoed across the suddenly silent clearing. The hunters stumbled to their feet, grimacing at the churned ground, spattered with bird droppings. Feathery corpses who’d not survived midair collisions littered the ground, and giant footprints shoved up cracking hardpacked divots, their edges jutting like broken concrete.
A large limb tumbled off one of the shattered trees, landing with a crash, causing two of the Brothers to jump back with a curse.
“Everyone all right?” Darvish yelled, as they all instinctively took stock. “Sound off!”
“Fine!”
“Fine!”
They all yelled, one by one. Amy looked up into the trees searching for the Trelwins. Nelda, Zeke, and Chitchi were clinging to narrow sections of the high boles, looking shaken, but okay.
“Good thing they weren’t bats,” the Doctor said, shaking out his hair. Brushing away twigs and leaves.
Amy grimaced down at her jacket. “Eww! Bad enough.” She pulled her jacket away, looking in disgust at the white splatter mark.
“Here,” Bill threw a handful of dirt on the messy stain and rubbed it in. “Give that a few minutes, then brush it off.”
Amy looked up at her, grimacing again. “Thanks.”
“What caused that?” Rory asked again, kneeling to scoop up a handful of dirt to apply to his own stains. He looked up at the Doctor. “Is something trying to drive us off?”
That sent a frisson through the group. They all looked at each other uncomfortably. Eula joined them, and dabbed antiseptic on a variety of cuts and scratches, from his medical kit. They all looked at the Doctor.
“That?” the Doctor said, waving in dismissal. “Nah, they were startled by something, or they probably blundered into the zone then panicked when the magnetic field messed up their sense of direction,” he said, not very convincingly. “They’ll either blunder out again, or settle down here and adapt. Ouch!” He hissed as Eula dabbed antiseptic on a scratch on his cheek.
“Best to be careful,” Eula said, spraying a bit of sealant on the cut then moving on to the others.
Erik stalked up, beyond him, Darvish went to check on the rest of the group on the other side of the clearing. “You lot all right?” Erik asked in his booming voice, his eyes quickly flicked assessingly over the Doctor.
The Doctor bristled. “I’d be better if I had my sonic screwdriver.”
Erik ignored him. Pointedly.
“Over here!” George suddenly yelled from the far side of the clearing. They all turned to find the Brother holding up something black.
At first Amy thought it was another dead bird. They were a metallic black, about the size of a starling. But as everyone converged on him, she could see it was a piece of metal.
Darvish beat them to him, and George handed the twisted bit of shuttle to the Safari leader, then said something and gestured down the trampled path where the herbivore had charged through the trees. Farther in, sunlight broke through, where the tops of the trees had been sheared off.
-----
They followed the herbivore’s path and found the shuttle crash lane. The treetops had been decapitated high overhead, in a clearly delineated line, straight southeast, cutting across the herbivore’s path. It was a rat’s nest of damage, a tangle of downed branches and sheered boles. Severed treetops caught, suspended, against their neighbors, the whole line gradually getting lower.
They followed the crash lane for an hour, walking to the side, rather than under it, to avoid the debris.
Amy, Rory, and the Doctor picked their way around a huge downed branch full of spikey points that had been flung wide into the ferns.
“Why did you ask if something was trying to drive us off, Rory?” the Doctor asked abruptly, picking his way across spikey branches.
Rory looked back at him, careful where he placed his own feet. “It’s just this feeling I have. Like something’s watching me. It’s been getting stronger the farther we go in.”
Amy looked back. “Me too.” she said, waiting for them on the other side. Her hands went to her hips. “It’s like someone’s trying to talk to me, in the back of my head.”
“Yeah,” Rory said. “It’s creepy.”
Rory untangled his foot from the last branch, and looked up, right at a large, grey skinned tree that was completely twisted around on its bole. “And now we have twisty trees!” he said in disgust.
“It’s just the electromagnetic vortex here, changing the way they grow” the Doctor said, grinning and patting him on the shoulder as he stumbled his way out of the last of the ferns. “It’s getting stronger the farther in we go. Nothing to worry about.”
Amy and Rory both gave him dubious looks.
The forest started to become more jungle the farther in they went. Gnarled jungle trees, twisted on their boles, becoming interspersed with the larger redwoods. More undergrowth. They had to start using their machetes to hack a path through the ferns.
As the increasingly denser canopy deepened the air to twilight under the trees, they noticed something glimmering in the forest. Not the shine of metal, but a soft glow. Coming from a point ahead.
Darvish and Erik waved them all together. Silent, weapons out, they passed through the last line of trees into another clear area, the strange light gleamed off treetrunks behind them.
A ghost hung in the air before them.
-----
It was ten feet tall, hanging several feet off the ground. A long, attenuated form, humanoid, indistinct, apparently wearing a long flowing tabard.
“Huh, there are ghosts,” the Doctor muttered.
Erik glared at him.
It bobbed very slightly in the breeze, head down as if asleep. It made no sound, gave no shadow beyond the faint glow it emitted. It seemed to have no mass. Yet it was clearly there.
“Look,” Pickles gestured with his gun, quietly. They all looked where he was pointing, to see another ghost, twenty feet away.
“And there,” Eldon said, pointing his gun in the opposite direction. Another ghost, and beyond it, the glimmer of another.
A line of ghosts, faintly curving.
The Doctor plucked at his lip and studied them, eyes narrow.
“Trelwin have elves?” Rory asked, keeping his voice low.
The Doctor looked at him, startled, then looked back at the figure. The “ghosts” looked like vague, semi-transparent energy versions of the Trelwin. Except these Trelwin were elegant, upright, and wore clothes, like seeing an elvin or fairy version of the Trelwin.
The Doctor grinned like a madman. “Why not? Most thinking species have mythological creatures of some kind.”
“They’re almost beautiful,” Amy said. “But they are pretty blurry.”
George crept forward hesitantly and poked the barrel of his gun at the apparition.
The barrel touched it. The apparition screamed and leapt, flashing red, demonic eyes and teeth, sharp claws. Red lightning zapped down the barrel and exploded, throwing George backward into a tree with a crack like a gunshot. He was dead before he slithered to the ground.
“Don’t touch them!” the Doctor and Erik screamed.
“They’re energized!” the Doctor added, herding Amy and Rory behind him.
The entire ring of apparitions turned red and started advancing, converging on their location.
“This isn’t good, yeah?” Amy said.
“This isn’t good, no,” Rory replied, grabbing her arm and hauling her backward.
The air turned red with the advancing ghosts.
“Run!” the Doctor yelled.
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