Peacemas p.2
Back at the house the Doctor left Martha helping Marta in the kitchen and went out to track down Logan. He found the older man in a huge barn set among pastures a good half kilometer from the house. From the outside it looked like a traditional “big red barn.” But inside, half the space was stalls, while the other side was gleaming electronics.
Logan looked up from attaching sensor pads to one of the local “cows.” It was the last in a long line of similarly attached cows running down the electronic side of the barn. The cows here were leaner than the ones on Earth, almost deerlike in some ways. No doubt better able to handle browsing on alien grass. Logan patted the beast’s side and got up to greet the Doctor.
“What can I help you with, Doctor?” He said, wiping his hands off on the ubiquitous barn towel, some things never changed down through the centuries.
“Actually I was hoping I could help you. What are you doing?” he said in a sudden switch of topic. His curiosity getting the better of him as he looked down the line of sensor attached cows, all placidly chewing their cud. They weren’t giving milk, and the pads didn’t seem to be stimulating muscles.
“Huh?” Logan looked over his shoulder at his livestock. “Oh,” he grinned. “Fetal monitoring. These are first generation hybrids. I’ve got a government grant to research and ensure the hybridization stays stable under alien conditions. These little ladies are our first free range mothers. We want to be sure the fetuses don’t have any deformities or mutations before the breed is distributed for widespread use.”
The Doctor nodded. It was fairly standard practice, although he was more used to seeing it from the laboratory angle, rather than on the farm.
“Actually,” he said, pulling his gaze away from the strangely elegant cattle, and stuffing his hands in his pockets. “I was wondering about these subsidences you’ve been having.”
“Yeah,” Logan scratched the back of his head. “That is puzzling.” He casually walked over and set a few controls on the electronic wall, looked down the line of placid cattle, checking something, then set one last control and beckoned for the Doctor to follow him out of the barn. “It only started a few months ago. Right as it started getting cold.” He led the Doctor over to the corner of the garage, where the white paddock fence met the red wall. He pointed down. There was another sandy patch at the juncture of wall and fence. “There used to be a crepe myrtle bush growing right here. One day it was here, the next day, gone. Nothing but sand.”
“Have you analyzed the sand?” the Doctor asked.
Logan nodded. “That’s the first thing we did. You don’t take anything for granted on a new planet. But, nothing. It’s just sand. No unusual bacteria, no viral forms, no insects or parasites, no radiation or odd energy readings. It’s just sand.”
“How far down does it go?” the Doctor asked, he burrowed his hand down into the sand up past his wrist. There was no dirt underneath it. It wasn’t just poured on top of the ground.
“All the way,” Logan answered. “We thought at first that it was a sinkhole, or some sort of quicksand, it even took out half the compost heap behind the house, but...” he stepped into the middle of the sand, on the slight depression. The sand held. He stomped to prove his point. “No movement. It’s solid. Or as solid as sand gets anyway.” He moved off the patch, uneasy, not wanting to test his luck.
“Have there been any strange sightings recently?” the Doctor asked. “Any strange craft in orbit?”
“What, like alien invaders come to steal our bushes?” Logan grinned. He shook his head. “No, traffic control hasn’t logged anything unusual. And there aren’t any other inhabited planets in this system.”
The Doctor waved a hand down at the sand. “Are they always like this? Round patches?”
Logan shook his head. “Usually, but we did have some really weird shapes show up in the grain fields.”
“Crop circles?” the Doctor asked, eyebrows rising.
“Not circles exactly,” Logan said, not getting the reference. “More sort of like trails, as if someone had just meandered through with a mower. None of them were very long. We didn’t lose enough grain to worry about, but I did take pictures, they’re back at the house.” He jerked his thumb over his shoulder back toward the homestead. “We tested the grain near the bald spots too, but we didn’t find anything unusual. Why are you so interested?”
“Oh, you could say I’m a wandering problem solver. I can’t resist a good mystery.”
---------
The rest of the family returned just before noon. Marta, Logan, and Toby piled out of the house and helped unload the wide, round, flatbed trucks that looked to Martha rather like huge m&m shaped hovercraft. The white ceramic coating even looked like a candy shell, she thought, with half the top dome chopped off to form the bed of the truck and the remaining curved shell serving as windscreen and weather shield for the drivers.
Martha and the Doctor were introduced around to Logan’s parents-in-law and three twenty-something male cousins, and one fiance of a cousin who had decided to come out early and help with preparations for the party.
Groceries were carried into the main house, and large, mysteriously wrapped parcels were spirited away to their hiding places before their distribution later that night. The Doctor smiled as he watched the cousin and his fiance giggling as they hustled two large sacks of parcels off to the bunkhouse the cousins shared.
The Doctor pulled Martha off to the sidelines as the family ran around putting up supplies talking about what and who they’d seen in town.
“Come on, there’s something I want to check.” He took her elbow and led her out the back door and down the path to the berry patch just inside the forest.
“What’s this all about?” she asked, as he started quartering the area, scanning the ground with his sonic screwdriver.
The Doctor waved a negligent hand at the sandy patch where her berry basket had disappeared, not looking up from his work. “Those things have been appearing lately, random sandy patches where there used to be vegetation.”
“And that means something?” she asked.
“It could do. I’ve seen something like it before. But I’m not getting the kind of energy readings I’d expect.” He knocked on his sonic screwdriver, shaking it as if it was deliberately being obtuse. He shook his head and switched the device off. He ran his hand through his hair. “In your talks with Marta, has she mentioned any people going missing lately?”
Martha’s eyebrows went up. “No. She’s mostly been excited about the party and reminiscent of other Peacemasses. I got the impression this planet isn’t very inhabited yet, so she’s looking forward to the company.”
“No unease? No avoiding certain topics?” he coaxed.
Martha shook her head. “No, she seems pretty calm and happy. Why, are you expecting some...”
“TOBY!" Marta’s visceral scream split the air, the mother’s anguish audible even from here. The Doctor and Martha looked at each other and ran. They found Marta behind the house frantically digging at a patch of sand. But this patch of sand wasn’t round, it was the distinct shape of a fallen little boy.
Her cousins milled around in confusion, not understanding what had happened. Vince, the eldest, tried to put his arm around her and calm her down, but she threw him off.
The Doctor ran and slid down beside her on his knees. He quickly scanned the sand with his sonic screwdriver, his face went black at whatever readings he found. He pocketed it and grabbed Marta by the shoulders.
“Marta. Marta! Look at me!” he ordered. The frantic woman tried to keep digging, tears streaming down her face, a high pitched keening coming from her throat.
“MARTA!” The whipcrack of his voice penetrated her panic and she stared at him. He took her sand-scoured hands and held them tightly, keeping her still. “Tell me what happened.”
“He’s gone!” she wailed, starting to rock back and forth on her knees. He tightened his hands on hers and stopped the motion, his eyes caught hers, locking with them. His big brown eyes that looked so gentle but could spear a person down to the soul. “Tell me exactly what happened.”
Marta stilled and gulped. Martha saw Logan arrive and drape his arm around his wife’s shoulder, terrified by her shout, and by the strange mental hold this stranger seemed to have on her. Martha shook her head at him, giving him a tiny, encouraging smile. She nodded down to where Marta was gathering her composure under the influence of the Doctor’s eyes.
“I sent Toby to mum’s with some fresh garlands and a wreath to decorate for the party tonight,” Marta said, almost calm. “The garlands were long, draped all around him, and I saw him trip just outside the door. I went to help him and realized he couldn’t get up. He was trying to, I could see him pushing, but it was like he was stuck to the ground. Then,” she gulped and started breathing roughly, tears and hysteria pushing at the back of her throat, “he started fizzling,” she said on a rising tone of panic. “He just went all staticy, like bad reception on a monitor screen. I could see his face. He was looking at me. He was terrified.” She started rocking again. “Then he just disappeared.”
----------
Marta broke down weeping and collapsed into her husband’s arms. The Doctor reached forward and wrapped his long hand around her forehead, pressing her temples with forefinger and thumb. She gave an aspirating sigh and slumped bonelessly.
“What did you do?” Logan yelled, clutching his wife’s chubby form.
“Nothing,” the Doctor said. “I just sent her to sleep. We need to put her to bed. She’ll sleep for half an hour and wake up calmer, more able to handle the situation.” The Doctor helped Logan to his feet as the other man cradled his wife in his arms.
“What situation?” Logan demanded. “Where’s Toby?”
An older woman and an old man came running around the edge of the house. They saw their daughter unconscious in Logan’s arms and let out a cry. The Doctor sent Martha a beseeching look.
“Leila, Vince,” she said, looking at the affianced couple, “Go turn down the sheets on Marta’s bed, Vince, clear all those packages off the stairs. Mr. and Mrs. Miller, there’s been a problem. Toby’s missing, Marta has passed out, and we need you to look after her while the Doctor, Logan and I figure out what has happened.”
Logan gave Martha a blank stare for this bald faced lie but didn’t contradict her. He stalked into the house and carried his wife up the stairs, his cousins scuttling around him. Martha followed to check on Marta’s physical condition, and sent one last look back over her shoulder. The Doctor was sonicing the ground again, spiraling out from the sand patch in an ever widening circle.
“Do you have caves under here?” the Doctor asked immediately Logan and Martha returned, not giving Logan the chance to vent the frustrations that showed on his face.
“Caves?” Logan said. “Damn the caves! What happened to my son!?” he roared.
“I think I know where Toby is, Logan, but I have to know, do you have caves under your property.” Logan stared at him in blank outrage. “Caves, man! Surely you had the land surveyed before you staked claim here?” the Doctor roared back in equal frustration.
The familiarity of male irritation in the face of emotional upset seemed to calm Logan and snap him out of his terrified frozen mindblock.
“Caves, yes. I’ve got the original survey maps in my office. There are a few caves under here, that’s why we wondered about subsidence,” he jerked his chin toward the sand pit. “But there were no minerals found and the area is structurally stable so the claim was granted.”
“Good!” The Doctor said with satisfaction, snapping the sonic screwdriver off and stuffing it into his pocket. “We need to find a way in.”
“There’s a cave entrance not far back in the woods,” Vince said, standing in the doorway. The twenty year old, dark haired man bore a strong resemblance to Toby, looking like what the child would look like as an adult, brown hair, blue eyes, with a young rangy build. “It’s just a cave though, not a tunnel system, it’s got a crack in the back wall, but it doesn’t lead anywhere.”
“Oh, I’m betting it does now,” the Doctor said. “Come on, Logan. Show me these maps.”
---------
It was Vince who led them to the cave in the woods. The survey maps hadn’t shown much, simply a few unconnected caves dotted throughout the area. No subterranean tunnel networks or complex cave systems.
“There it is,” Vince said, waving to the outcropping of rock with the jagged cleft in the face. The outcropping was overgrown with ferns and bushes and could easily have been overlooked in the general forest greenery. Just another pile of rocks. But the Doctor approached the cavemouth with sonic screwdriver at the ready, as if he expected to find a firebreathing dragon inside.
He eased one foot into the fissure of the stone, then the other. Martha could see the blue light of the screwdriver waving back and forth, the light gleaming out of the dark slit.
“See anything?” she called when there was no response forthcoming.
“No. Come on in.” the Doctor’s muffled voice called back.
Martha squeezed her way into the stone, feeling dust trickling down the back of her neck as she brushed against the cleft walls. She emerged into an irregularly shaped earthen room, Vince and Logan followed behind. The room was about 20 feet across, sloping downward at the back, below the ground level outside, but hardly subterranean.
“Huh!” she huffed, hands on her hips as she surveyed the broken outline of the boulders that made up the domed ceiling of the room. The Doctor was holding the sonic screwdriver up as a torch, its blue light the only illumination. “I’d hardly call it a cave. It’s not much more than a hollow shaped by the way the boulders are piled,” she said, waving toward the rough stones and the way the plant roots showed through some of the cracks.
“I told you it wasn’t much,” Vince protested.
“Oh, I don’t know about that,” the Doctor said in a ruminative voice. He was examining the four foot tall slit in the back wall. That side of the room was lower than the rest, a couple of feet below ground level outside, but there was an impression of depth to the darkness inside the slit, suggesting it lead back farther into the hill.
The Doctor pressed his face up to the crack, eyeballing what he could see inside. He stuck his arm in as far as it would go, but even with his pinstriped sleeve in up to the shoulder he couldn’t seem to touch the back.
“Yes, I think this might be just what we need. Stand back.” He adjusted the sonic screwdriver and pointed it at the crack, buzzing it. The dirt around the hole started shaking loose, cascading down in rivulets, expanding the hole with every pass of the screwdriver.
Once the hole was big enough the Doctor stuck his head and shoulders inside. “Ah Hah! Just what I thought! Come on, Martha.” The Doctor pushed his way into the expanded crack, scratching his chest on the rock bordering the gash. Martha turned sideways and followed him.
Inside was the beginning of a tunnel, it was only slightly taller than Martha, not quite as wide as her outstretched arms, and sloped downward, back into the hill. The Doctor had already gone ahead, she could see the blue light of the sonic screwdriver gleaming off of the walls.
Martha started to follow, but the level floor near the entry abruptly sloped downward, she slipped in the loose dust and fell. She slid down the slope, turning and tumbling, using her arms to try to avoid the walls. A narrow hole came into view, pinching the tunnel ahead of her, a bottleneck only a few feet across. Unable to stop her descent, Martha squealed and curled herself into a ball. She bumped and tumbled down the slope, through the bottleneck, and into the back of the Doctor’s knees as he stood in the larger chamber beyond.
He let out a “Whoa!” windmilled his arms and fell backward over her.
Martha uncoiled her arms from around her head. She looked up. The Doctor was lying beside her, propped up on his elbows, looking at her as if he meant to be lying there with his legs propped up on her back.
“Are you okay?” Martha asked.
The Doctor humphed. He scrambled around and stood. He gave her a hand up. Then bent and picked up the sonic screwdriver which had gone flying out of his hand when she bowled into him. Fortunately it was still glowing, softly illuminating the cave they were in. It was another dome shaped cave, slightly larger than the one above. There seemed to be several other tunnels leading off of it.
They heard voices echoing from beyond the bottleneck. Martha leaned down and yelled up the tunnel. “Be careful! Watch your step, it’s steep!”
Before she finished the words they hear a yowl, and a long slithering sound, and Vince came sliding feet first into the cave, as if he’d just been birthed. A billow of dust rose up around him. He lay there, surprised, then coughed and waved the cloud of dust away. “Thanks for the warning,” he said wryly.
There was a mighty thud and an “Ouch!” And then Logan came crawling into the cave on all fours. He pushed a handlight across the floor in front of him. He slid it over in the loose dust to Vince. “Here, you dropped this.”
Logan stood up and took his own handlight from his belt, he played it around the room, the white beam picking out the mica and the rocky texture of the walls, and spearing down the different tunnels. “None of this showed up on the survey maps,” he said with calm surprise.
“No,” the Doctor said. “I expect they’ve been made since then.” He reached in his pocket and pulled out his powerful little pen torch which he handed to Martha.
“Thanks.” She flicked it on, relieved to have a light of her own, and played it around. There were five tunnels leading off of the cave, counting the one they had fallen down.
“So, what do we do?” Vince asked. “Split up?”
“No,” the Doctor said. “Unless I miss my guess, the house is this way.” He pointed with the sonic screwdriver toward the rightmost tunnel. “Best we all stay together for now. Until we know what we’re dealing with.”
Martha followed him at a crouch. “But you already have an idea what we’re dealing with, don’t you Doctor?” she whispered as they all four threaded their way down the five foot tall tunnel.
The Doctor gave her one of those quick dire looks back over his shoulder. Then turned forward again. “That’s why we should all stick together.”
They seemed to walk forever. Martha knew it wasn’t, it was probably only minutes, but crouching under the low tunnel ceiling was even starting to make her shoulders hurt. It had to be worse for the Doctor and the men.
“TOBY!” Logan yelled behind her. She virtually jumped out of her skin. The man drew breath to call for his son again, but the Doctor wheeled and shushed him savagely.
“Keep quiet!” The blue light of the sonic screwdriver cast his bony face in satanical relief. “We don’t want to attract the attention of what built these tunnels.”
“What did build these tunnels?” Vince asked.
“I don’t know yet,” he said. Martha doubted that. “But our best bet is to find Toby without drawing attention to ourselves.”
“I want my son, Doctor,” Logan said.
“So do I. The house is only a little farther. With luck they’ll still be there. Trust me, Logan. We’ll get Toby back. I promise.” The Doctor gave him a long look then turned and continued to lead the way.
There were side tunnels, some large and some small, and one other intersection cave, but the Doctor kept them going in the right direction. They came to a junction in the tunnel, one tunnel forking off to the right, the other to the left.
“Logan, Vince, you take the left tunnel. Martha and I will take the right. We’re close to the house now. Keep you eyes open. If you see any movement... Wait. Here, Vince, give me your handlight.” The Doctor reached out for the device and quickly popped it open when Vince handed it over. He pulled loose some wires, cross circuited something and soniced it down. He popped it closed and handed it back. “Keep it turned on. If you get stuck, hit the button to turn it off, throw it, and run. We’ll meet back here in ten minutes.” He waved them off into the other tunnel, then took Martha’s pen light and gave it the same treatment.
“What’s this in aid of, Doctor?” she asked.
He handed the light back. “Just a precaution.” He ducked into the righthand tunnel without elaborating. Martha gritted her teeth and rolled her eyes. He could be such an exasperating, alien!
The tunnel they’d chosen almost immediately started curving to the right, away from the other. “Are you sure we’re still heading toward the house?” Martha asked after several minutes.
“Should be. We’ve been heading steadily west. The house should be right above us. Hsst!” He held up a hand. “Do you hear that?”
A soft whimpering echoed down the tunnel.
The Doctor beckoned her silently and crept forward. Around the next curve of the tunnel the area opened out into a small cave. Very small, only six feet tall and twice as wide. The Doctor motioned her back, and squatted down.
Inside the cave the walls glowed with a green fungus. The soft green light showed Toby, standing by the lefthand wall. The whimpering noises were coming from him. He was standing, terrified, shivering in his little overalls. Staring at a monster.
The monster was huge, ten feet long, and four feet tall, lying on its belly, and looked like a giant pillbug. Curved, segmented armor plates, stretched back over a long humped form. Antennae quivered in the little boy’s direction, the creature’s pug face only an armlength from the child. It was chewing on the end of a long garland, its motions as slow and deliberate as a cow chewing its cud.
“Toby,” the Doctor whispered.
The little boy’s eyes moved, straining sideways toward the Doctor. But otherwise he stood rooted to the spot.
“He’s too scared, Doctor,” Martha said. “He can’t move.”
“No, he’s a brave little boy. Aren’t you Toby?” The Doctor inched closer, taking a good look at the creature. He held out his hand to the child. “When I give the word, you come to me, Toby, yeah? You run right to me.” He turned and talked to Martha over his shoulder, never taking his reassuring gaze from the boy’s terrified eyes. “Martha, turn off your light and throw it.”
“What?” she started to argue.
“Just do it!”
She clicked off the penlight and tossed it at the creature. It bounced harmlessly off the chitinous plates. And exploded.
“Now!” The Doctor yelled.
Tony dashed to him and jumped straight into his arms. The Doctor scooped him up, whirled and ran. “Run!”
Martha was right behind him. The weird warbling yell of the creature, deafening behind her, urged her on.
Back through the intersection, back through the tunnels, out into the second intersection cave. “Which way?” Martha yelled, she’d overtaken him in the junction and was now in the lead.
“Left! Keep going left!” the Doctor yelled.
Left, and left again. They didn’t wait for Logan and Vince to catch them up, it was more important to get Toby to safety. The little boy clung to the Doctor like a limpet. The Doctor was forced to run crouched over in the short tunnels but that didn’t slow him down.
Martha took a left again and emerged into the final intersection tunnel. But there was no way out. No kneehigh tunnel leading to the surface.
And all the walls were made of black glass.
The Doctor skidded to a halt and looked around. “Oh this is not good.”
-----
“We’re lost!” Martha wailed.
“Did you keep turning left?” the Doctor demanded.
“I kept turning left!” she said with an exasperated wave of her hands. She stalked back toward the other side of the cave but stopped, there were three tunnels on that side of the cave. She wasn’t sure which one they’d come through. “Great! Now which way do we go?”
“We came in through the righthand tunnel,” the Doctor said, still carrying the boy.
“How do you know that?” Martha demanded.
He pointed with the sonic screwdriver. “Tracks.”
Martha rolled her eyes as the blue light illuminated their tracks emerging from the tunnel. “Right, then we go back right and turn right!” She ignored the redundancy of that statement and stalked off. The waning howl of the monster echoed down the tunnel. She stopped. She backed up a step.
“What was that thing, anyway?” she said nervously, turning back to the Doctor.
“A Tractator. I’ve come across them before, but never one as big as that. You all right, Toby?” he asked, turning his face down to the little head that was burrowed into his throat, tiny arms tight around his neck.
The boy nodded, but trembled. The Doctor rubbed his back. “You were very brave. You just hang onto me, all right?”
The little head nodded and hung on tighter.
“Right,” the Doctor said, turning back to Martha. “We’ve got to get out of here. If they’ve got glass walls like this, it means trouble. We’ve got to get out of here, find Logan and Vince and warn the authorities.”
Martha shrugged. “I’m all for it, but how do we get out of here?”
The Doctor thought about it hard for a moment, then looked up with decision. “We go back right and turn right.”
Ignoring her glare, he hitched Toby up and ducked back into the tunnel.
They picked their way carefully back through the tunnels, checking each left hand turn for signs of their incoming footprints. They only had the sonic screwdriver as a light now, its buzz grating on Martha’s teeth and nerves as she was sure the monster would hear it and would come looking.
She considered asking the Doctor to turn the sound of, until she realized she’d never seen the screwdriver lit up without the sound on, even if he wasn’t “sonicing” anything. Perhaps the sound was necessary. Maybe there was a gyroscope inside that not only created and modulated the sounds, but also generated the power for the light.
Thinking about the sonic screwdriver was better than thinking about that monster. But before she could ask the Doctor how it worked, he let out a muffled “Ah Hah!” and showed her the footprints leading off into the lefthand tunnel. There were four sets of footprints, all leading farther into the tunnels. But none leading out.
“Logan and Vince haven’t preceded us then,” Martha said.
“Doesn’t look like,” the Doctor said, shifting Toby to his other arm and bending his head to enter the new tunnel. “We’ll get Toby back to his mother first. Then, if they haven’t shown up, we’ll come back and look for them.”
“Okay,” Martha said, “You all right, Toby?”
“Yuh huh,” the little boy said, his face muffled in the Doctor’s collar.
Retracing their steps took less time than Martha expected. They made it back to the main junction cave, with the reassuring sight of the hole to the outside, without any problems, and without running into Vince or Logan.
“Right, Martha, you go first, then Toby, then me,” the Doctor instructed hastily as he set Toby down.
Martha ducked around him and trotted eagerly for the tunnel. Then stopped. She squeaked.
The Doctor looked up from Toby. “Martha?”
“I’m stuck!” She strained, trying to move her legs but her feet were glued to the ground. A wave of yellowish static washed up from the ground, over her feet and up, encompassing her whole body.
“Martha!” The Doctor whipped out his sonic screwdriver and ran forward. She caught at his hand as her feet sank away into the floor. The yellowish static flowed across to engulf him as well.
“Saint!” Toby ran over and grabbed the Doctor’s sleeve, pulling with all his sturdy little might.
“Toby, no!” the Doctor yelled. But the yellow static encompassed the boy as well. The Doctor scooped the child close with one arm as they all began phasing out, an inexorable force pulling them down through solid rock.
Their vision returned from its haze of yellow and black to find themselves floating slowly downward from a ceiling toward the armored grublike form of the Tractator below, its antennae twitching in time to the staticy field that encompassed them.
“Hold on!” the Doctor yelled, and tripped the sonic screwdriver.
Feedback squealed out. The Tractator grunted like a startled pig and the energy field blinked out. The Tractator curled its antennae down in painful response to the sound. They all fell, Martha screamed, Toby yelled, the Doctor “Whoa!ed” and they all fell right on top of the resilient chitinous armor of the creature and bounced off.
The Tractator jumped and squealed and scuttled off as fast as it’s four stubby legs could take it. By the time Martha rolled over and pushed herself to a sitting position all she saw was the Tractator’s bulbous armored rear end wiggling away frantically down the corridor.
“Everyone all right?” The Doctor asked, as he untangled his lanky self from his landing curl and stood up, brushing fastidiously at his pinstriped suit. He looked around, “Toby?”
“Okay,” the boy said, but his lower lip was trembling. He watched the monster crawl away into the caves and shivered. He pushed himself up and ran straight over to the Doctor. “Scared!” he declared, holding his arms up. The Doctor knelt and wrapped the little boy in his long arms.
“It’s okay, buddy,” he said, into the child’s silky hair. He rubbed the little boy’s back then set the child away and grinned at him. “He didn't like that sound, did he?” He held up the sonic screwdriver and gave a shrill blast. “Did you see the way his antennae curled up?” The Doctor made fake antennae with his long fingers and curled them down tight with a comical grimace of pain on his face. The little boy laughed.
“That’s the man," the Doctor said. “You’re braver than any old bug, aren’t you?” The Doctor stood up and gripped the young boy’s hand. Toby stood up straighter and nodded decisively.
Martha smiled to herself.
“So,” The Doctor started patting himself down with his free hand. He frowned at the sonic screwdriver in it. “Here,” he said, handing Toby the device, its light providing the only illumination in this black cave, “you hold this.” The boy went wide eyed with the privilege and held the sonic screwdriver up with pride. “Don’t push any buttons,” the Doctor warned as he went back to patting down his pockets.
“Ah!” He dug into an inside pocket and pulled out a long wooden twig, almost as long as his hand, perfectly straight, and about 1/4 inch thick. “Everlasting match!” he said triumphantly. He reached over to strike it on the rock wall. The tip slid frictionlessly down the glass surface.
“Oh,” the Doctor looked up and round, only then realizing they were in another black glass cave. “Ooookay,” he drawled slowly. He looked around for somewhere else to strike the match. Sole of the shoe, too rubbery, clothes, too smooth, Martha’s hairband, same problem, Toby’s clothes, no help there. Finally with a sigh, he knelt down and changed a setting on the sonic screwdriver. “Point that right there, Toby,” he said, pointing to the end of the long match. The boy leaned the screwdriver forward, pointing it with careful intensity. The sound changed pitch, and the match ignited. “Good job!” The Doctor grinned at the boy, then stood up and handed the mini-torch to Martha. “There you go.”
Martha took the fragile bit of wood dubiously, holding it up. “How long’s this gonna last?”
“Forever,” he said, taking his sonic screwdriver back from Tony and holding it up high so they could see their prison better. “It’s an everlasting match. It’s made out of a special wood that grows when heated. If you set it on fire it will burn forever. Or at least as long as there’s oxygen.”
“Great.”
---------
The Doctor examined the walls with the sonic screwdriver. Unlike the previous glass walled cave, this one was completely smooth. Only the flickering shadows gave it the appearance of unevenness.
“Hm.” He knelt down and ran his fingers over a pile of black glass chipping that lined the base of the walls.
“Dusty,” he observed. “Well, that’s a relief anyway.”
“How long does it take things to become dusty underground?” Martha asked doubtfully, holding the match down to get a clear view of the chippings.
“Good point,” the Doctor said. “Keep your ears open.”
They exited the cave through the only one of the three tunnels that didn’t show signs of the Tractator’s passage.
Toby held the Doctor’s hand. The Doctor went before, the sonic screwdriver held high. Its cool blue light cast a ghostly radiance over the air. Martha came behind, the everlasting match held high, its flickering yellow light casting odd glimmering shadows on the walls, as if something moved behind the glass.
“Doctor?” she said uneasily.
“It’s an optical illusion. Just ignore it,” he said too quickly. Toby was nervously sucking his thumb.
“Do you have any idea where we’re going?” Martha asked. “There’s not even a draft to follow.”
“Good thing. Last time I followed the breeze it just led to trouble,” he said. “We’re moving up.”
Martha looked down at the level floor. “How can you tell?”
He lifted the sonic screwdriver, its tip pointed at the ceiling and raised a disbelieving eyebrow at her.
“Of course.” She rolled her eyes. “Is there anything that thing can’t do?”
“Not much. The mass above us is less dense in this direction, besides, there’s no other way to go until we find another tunnel.” This section of the tunnel had been completely smooth and unbroken so far.
“What if we don’t?” she asked.
“Martha, have a little faith,” he said, exasperated, but smiling encouragingly.
It seemed like they walked for hours. But there was no way to tell. The sonic screwdriver remained steady, and the everlasting match never burned down. Only the weariness of their feet and Tony’s occasional petulant grumble marked the passage of time.
“We’ll rest here for a bit,” the Doctor said, stopping when Toby started to fret in earnest.
“I can carry him if you like,” Martha offered, wanting to get out of this endless glimmering gloom.
“No, we’re all tired. Best to conserve our energy.” He folded his long lanky body down, sitting cross-legged in the center of the tunnel. Toby crawled into his lap and curled into a ball.
Martha hunkered down with a bit less grace and sighed in relief. She set the everlasting match aside on a dust free patch of black glass floor. She watched it for a minute to be sure it would continue to burn, then pulled her jacket closer around her and tucked her hands inside.
“It’s a good think we’re underground, at least it’s not really cold,” she said.
“No, just cool. Your ancestors knew what they were doing living in caves.”
She grinned somewhat sourly, not knowing whether to be complimented or insulted.
“Still,” she said. “It would be nice if we had something to eat.”
“Oh,” the Doctor started patting down his pockets, avoiding the sleeping Toby. He pulled out an apple from inside his jacket and flipped it at her. “There you go.”
She caught it in surprise. She looked from the plump green apple to the flat, snug fit of his suit. She didn’t ask. She bit into the apple. It was crisp and sweet and juice dribbled down her chin. She wiped it up with her finger. “Thanks,” she said, mouth full.
“Pleasure.” He grinned back.
“So what are we going to do?” She sat forward, cradling the apple in her hands.
“Find a way out,” he said.
“Well, obviously. But how? It’s not like we can phase through rock by ourselves.”
“No. But there’s air down here, it has to be coming from somewhere. Even Tractators have to breathe. What I don’t get is where are the rest?” He looked around at the glass walls suspiciously.
“What do you mean?” Martha asked.
“We’ve seen one, admittedly over-large Tractator. So where are the rest? They don’t resemble bugs for no reason, if there’s one there’s usually a whole colony, so where are they?”
“Perhaps there is only one,” Martha said, perking up at that thought.
“Hmm. Possibly.”
“Come on,” the Doctor said a while later. He got to his feet, still holding the sleeping Toby. The little boy wrapped his arms limply around the Doctor’s neck, rested his head on his chest, and went back to sleep. The Doctor wrapped both arms under him and set off down the tunnel. Martha tossed aside her apple core, picked up the match, and followed.
The corridor curved ahead of them in a long sweep. The reflection from the match and sonic screwdriver illuminated farther than they would normally as the smooth glass wall bounced and reflected the light down the tunnel ahead of them.
Slowly the curve revealed itself, and its end.
“What is that thing?” Martha asked, holding the match higher.
The tunnel ended abruptly, the sheer rock wall plugged with a machine, a large circular device, with blades that extended out to meet the walls. Where the blades met the walls, the glass had fused around them. Giving the glass a runny, lumpy appearance.
“Take him.” The Doctor handed a sleepy Toby over to Martha. She took him carefully, trying to keep the match out of the way. Toby woke up with a querulous sound, but the Doctor laid a finger on his lips. “Shhh.” He said softly, warning the boy. Toby’s eyes widened, but he pressed his lips together and nodded. He craned his neck to see past the Doctor and see what the fuss was about.
The Doctor approached the device carefully. The back of the machine was a solid plate, only the blades giving it shape. The front of the machine was aimed away from them, toward the wall. The Doctor eased forward, there was no way to reach the front of the machine, the blades formed a solid cage, attached to the machine at one end and fused into the walls at the other. The Doctor shone the sonic screwdriver into the gap between two of the blades, playing it over whatever was in front.
“Ah.”
It was not a happy sound. It sounded like the confirmation of unwelcome news.
“What is it?”
“The driver...”
There was a sudden rattling clink as the glass chips along the edges of the floor started to vibrate and tumble. The floor beneath them rumbled. There was a loud noise like breaking glass, or like someone chewing the biggest ice cube ever.
The wall of the tunnel cracked, and exploded outward.
“Martha!” The Doctor jumped forward and grabbed Martha and Tony, dragging them back to shelter by the machine. He shielded them with his body as debris tumbled around them the giant Tractator surged into the tunnel.
The insect didn’t even stop, but barreled down the tunnel in the opposite direction, its huge armor plates weaving from side to side as it scuttled heavily away. Martha kept expecting to see dozens of legs churning away under it, like an isopod, but even with only four legs it moved faster than anything that big should.
Toby whimpered and clutched tighter to Martha.
“I don’t think it saw us,” the Doctor said.
“How could it not?!” Martha said with near panic. It was one thing to see that creature from above, where it seemed smaller, but to see two tons of rampaging insect explode out of the wall was enough to frighten anyone.
“It’s concentrating on something else,” he said. “Your apple core, unless I’m much mistaken.”
“You’re telling me that that thing smelled my apple through solid rock?” Martha said in disbelief.
“Of course. How else can it know what’s good to eat on the surface?” He herded Martha and Toby ahead of him toward the tunnel the creature had left behind. “This solves our problem of how to get out, anyway.”
The tunnel was six feet tall, taller than the creature, which Martha vividly remembered seeing rearing up as it dug, before it fell through into the tunnel. She shivered. The tunnel was tall enough for her to hurry along, running while still holding Toby, the Doctor had to duck his head. But then, Martha was certain he could crawl on his belly, and still manage to move faster than a human.
“The match has gone out,” she observed, blankly, still a bit shocked, as she noticed the blackened stub she still clutched in one hand, under Toby’s bum. It was probably a good thing, she wouldn’t have wanted to burn him.
“The gust of wind knocked it out. No worries, I’ll relight it as soon as we find a clear intersection.” He chivvied them along, not that Martha required motivation to move as far away from that creature as possible.
Eventually, to Martha’s surprise, they did come out into an intersection. A rough rock one at that. No glass walls here.
“That’s better,” the Doctor said with satisfaction, observing the cave. “Here, let me.” He took the match and relit it with a blast of the sonic screwdriver. He took Toby from her and set him on his feet. The boy was extremely wide awake now. “Think you can keep up with us, champ?”
The boy nodded, wide eyed, biting his lip but determined.
“Good man!” The Doctor offered his hand and the boy took it gratefully.
“Through here, I think.” The Doctor did a quick scan with the sonic screwdriver and led them out through one of the five tunnels intersecting the cave. Martha breathed a sigh of relief when she felt the cool breeze that wafted down the tunnel, and the gentle, but reassuring upward incline of the ground under her feet.
Tunnels were more plentiful here, dark archways branching off showing a large network and many possible escape routes. The light began to grow brighter. Up ahead a tall archway shed light into the tunnel. The light slowly swamped the sonic screwdriver’s blue glow and Martha perked up. “Doctor?”
He held out an arm and stopped her. The light was orange. He shoved Toby back toward her. “Stay here.”
Easing his way forward, he approached the archway. Martha pressed herself back against the tunnel wall, anything that unnerved the Doctor was not something she wanted to mess with. She held Toby’s small hand tightly. The little boy looked up at her with frightened eyes. She smiled at him reassuringly. His gaze went back to the Doctor. His hero slipped around the corner and disappeared.
Martha held her breath.
Silence.
Stillness.
The clink of a pebble on stone.
“It’s all right,” the Doctor’s voice drifted back to them. “You can come in.”
Martha and Toby crept forward carefully, and eased around the corner into the archway. Then stopped in surprise.
They were in a huge, vaulted, cathedral room. Huge stanchions curved up around the walls, holding up a dome shaped roof over a massive mosaic inlaid floor. The pattern on the floor was of stars and planets. But it was something else on the floor the Doctor was looking at.
“That explains it,” he said, standing up from a large, grey black lump lying to one side of the floor.
“What does?” Martha said, almost not wanting to know.
The Doctor carefully turned over the lump. And she realized it was a Tractator, smaller, and more refined looking than the one she’d already seen. It was dead. Almost mummified. The side of its head had been caved in by the large boulder that lay on the floor beside it.
“This,” the Doctor said, waving down at the pitiful corpse, “used to be the Gravis.”
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