Youth is Wasted on the Young p.8
They all ran for the airfield, pounding across the lawn to the tarmac, the longer legged grown-ups outstripping the shorter Feyanorans.
"Jeff, we'll be taking the ATV, you'll be in charge while..." Dutch turned as they reached the airfield. "What are you doing?"
Jeff lowered his cell phone from his ear as he followed. "Just calling my wife and telling her I probably won't be home tonight."
"Good idea," Dutch said. "Can you call Candy and tell her for me as well? And see if she checked on our daughter. I don't trust the boys."
The Doctor turned as he entered the hatch of the ATV and grinned, eyes alight. "Your wife's name is Candy?" he asked.
"Yes. You have a problem with that?" Dutch asked aggressively, hands on hips.
"No, no," the Doctor said. He grinned wider. "It's a nice name. Sweet."
Amy groaned.
Another ATV had arrived while they'd been in the house, and was parked catty-corner to the sheriff's, forming a plaza between the two ships. A curly-haired, 12 year old boy in blue tweed was presiding over a table set up outside its hatch, dispatching forensic teams and equipment with the panache of a seasoned professional.
"Clarke!" the sheriff yelled and went to join his colleague. The boy looked up and waved, then turned back to his map and directed another team off toward the silos.
Stanley downloaded something from his array into a handheld tracker larger and more elaborate than the sheriff's. He kicked down a portable control stand and came trotting toward the ATV, festooned with equipment.
The three tripods huddled in a quiet conference at the far end of the tarmac. They broke up, two of them twirling toward the ATV hatch, the other returning to their ship.
The Doctor, Amy, and Rory stepped into the ATV, out of the way, as Stanley and the tripods clambered on board.
Stanley set up a tech nest at the back of the cabin, setting up his remote board, which looked like a cross between a portable synthesizer, and a complex sound mixing station covered with hundreds of knobs and sliders.
Dutch climbed in and turned to close the hatch. Jeff stopped him and leaned in. "Candy says Janet's been discharged from the hospital with a flex cast. They took her home and stopped on the way to check on Amelia. Everything's fine." He nodded to them, closed the hatch door, and gave a thump to signal it was secure.
"Amelia?" the Doctor and Rory both said, staring at the small sheriff.
Dutch puffed out his burly, 12-year-old chest. "My first grandbaby. She's due to be born soon."
"Amelia?" the Doctor and Rory both stared at Amy.
"What?" she said, crossing her arms. "It's a good name."
-----
Dutch jumped into the pilot's seat, and started up the ATV. "Everybody get secured in," he ordered over his shoulder. They scrambled for their seats, activating the restraint fields. The engines whirred up to speed. "Stanley?" Dutch asked.
Stanley worked his board. "250 south, three grids west."
"Right," the sheriff said. "Everyone hang on."
He lifted the ship and zoomed out over the plantation house, heading south.
-----
Countryside whizzed past them outside. A silence fell in the cabin.
Amy stretched out her hose-clad legs. Stanley eyed her, but turned back to his board. Amy ignored him and turned to study the little pink aliens sitting on the bench seats across from her.
"I'm surprised you stayed on to help," she said with her usual tactlessness. "Don't you have to report back to work? Won't your boss get mad?"
The slightly larger of the two (she couldn't really tell them apart) replied. "I'm Captain/owner of my ship. My family has traded with the Kitterangs for generations. If something has happened to them we want to know what, and help if we can. Work can wait."
Rory looked at the Doctor in surprise. The ATV flew along with a steady hum, there were only the few of them on board, all human in one way or another. Rory turned to stare at the small aliens sitting on the bench farther down from him. Two legs propped them up in front like a dog, with the other leg curled forward around the base of their little round bodies, forming a stable seat. They had no expressions, no faces, they were completely blank, completely inhuman. Yet... "Good neighbors," he whispered in wonder. His eyes widened at the thought.
The Doctor smiled.
-----
"How long till we get there?" Amy asked.
"At this speed, probably 25 minutes or so," the Doctor answered.
Rory's stomach growled. He turned beet red. "Sorry." Amy's stomach gurgled back from across the aisle in sympathetic response.
Stanley looked at the grown-ups, then set aside his remote board on its foldaway legs and went and opened a cupboard built into the ATV's back wall. Inside was a wealth of emergency supplies. Including boxes of power bars. He pulled out a handful and pocketed one. He turned and tossed bars to the others. "Catch!"
All three travelers managed to catch theirs despite their surprise. Stanley looked down at the bar in his hand, then looked up at the larger hands and bodies of the almost giant grown-ups filling the cabin. He tossed each of them a second bar.
"Thanks," said Rory as he bent to retrieve his second bar. "It's been a long time since breakfast."
"If you're handing those out, pass one up here, Stanley," Dutch said, waving a hand without looking. The Doctor released his seat lock and went up and gave the sheriff one of his bars. The sheriff looked up at him. "Thanks."
"No problem." The Doctor peeled his open and shoved the whole thing in his mouth. He watched Stanley struggle with whether or not to offer bars to the tripods. The boy wasn't used to dealing with aliens. Grown-ups were just oversized humans, but did tripods even eat?
The Doctor enjoyed watching the boy figure it out. It was one of the things he loved about his young companions. Watching them work out things, stretching their worldview. Stanley apparently realized that if the tripods were routinely buying grain, they probably ate it, and the power bars were mostly granola -- the same grains. But he had no idea if tripods even had mouths.
"Do you guys want some?" he finally asked, nodding at the tripods. "We've got other things. There's some juice pouches." He obviously was wondering about those mouths again.
"No, thank you," Schwillic said with dignity, vibrating his skin. "We're not hungry," he let the boy off the hook.
"I'll take one!" the Doctor's hand shot up where he had sprawled behind the Captain's chair, sitting on the floor.
Stanley scowled at his exuberance, but tossed him a purple juice pouch. Amy and Rory's hands went up, their mouths full, and he tossed them each one. He tossed the Doctor another one when the Time Lord nodded at the sheriff.
"So what do you think we're going to find, Dutch?" the Doctor asked.
The husky, young-looking sheriff took the open juice pouch from the Doctor with a nod of thanks. "I don't know. Survivors hopefully. But it could as easily be some farmhand working a far field that doesn't even know anything is wrong..."
"But..." the Doctor prompted.
"But it's the first tracer we've detected, other than ours. It's got to mean something!"
"That's the spirit!" The Doctor clapped him on the back.
-----
The tracking signal was coming from a large structure out in the middle of the fields. It was the size of a three-story building, and looked like something Frank Lloyd Wright would build -- all weird angles and odd proportions, made of glass, metal, and brick.
"Brick?" Rory asked. "They make machines out of brick?"
"Contra-gravity drive is very efficient," the Doctor said over his shoulder. "It doesn't matter how heavy something is. Local materials remember?"
It had left a trail of half-cropped wheat behind it and Amy realized they were looking at one of this world's harvesting machines.
They flew around it three times, slowly, everyone keeping an eye out, looking for any problems or clues. The harvester wasn't moving. Didn't appear to be functioning at all. There were no people that they could see.
"Take us down, Dutch," the Doctor ordered. Ignoring the fact that the sheriff had already started landing.
He set them down on the cleared half of the fields, a dozen yards from the harvester. Wheat stubble crackled under their feet as they jumped out of the ATV. The air was warm and dusty with late evening. A few gulls floated, crying overhead, but otherwise a grim silence filled the air. A rim of forest sprang up farther east, but the rest of the area was golden wheatfields as far as the eye could see.
The harvester had cut down the wheat stalks leaving sharp four-inch wheat stubble carpeting the ground. Amy squealed as the sharp stubble poked her bare ankles above her slippers. "Ouch! Dammit."
Rory gave her a repressive scowl. She scowled back.
"Spread out, " Dutch ordered, waving a hand, "See what you can find."
He and the Doctor headed for the cab of the harvester, a wrap-around bubble of plexiglass holding the main controls of the huge machine. Amy, Rory, and the tripods spread out to scan the ground and look for clues.
Stanley had his head down, bent over his handheld tracker. He wandered off after his own readings.
The door to the harvester was latched but not shut properly. Dutch jumped up and stuck his head inside. The seat was empty, the machine was shut down, the bank of complex electronics beyond, like the controls of a cruise ship, were unattended, there was no indication of anything wrong, there was simply no one inside. Just like the farm.
"Over here!" Stanley yelled.
The Doctor and Dutch turned to see Stanley walking in a circle among the sheared wheat. His tracker was pointing at the ground. They jumped down from the harvester and trotted over.
"What is it?" Dutch asked with foreboding.
The red-haired boy gave him a grave look, then knelt down, the antenna of his tracker pointing at something on the ground. He shoved aside the stalks of wheat. Something glinted in the loamy brown earth. He dug down and pulled up a small metal disk, covered with dirt.
"It's a trap," the Doctor said, his head snapping up, scanning. Rory arrived beside him and saw the look on his face.
"What...?"
There was a loud "Whump!" from the wheatfield. A bank of gray fog boiled up out of the wheat and rolled toward them.
"It's gas!" The Doctor turned his head, took a deep, clean breath and stopped breathing. "Get inside the Harvester!" he yelled. Stanley sprinted for the safety of the ATV. The Doctor threw Rory toward the nearby harvester with one arm and turned to find Amy with the other -- she was yards away. He saw her turn, start running, then the poisonous fog swamped her and he saw her fall, unconscious.
The Doctor grabbed Dutch and threw the small man, protesting, up into the cab were Rory caught him.
He could hear a deep, droning sound inside the fog. The Doctor turned and saw something moving. He rushed to get Amy, floundering toward her in the blanketing fog. All he could see was gray.
"Doctor!" he heard Rory yell behind him. Something large and hard as stone slammed into his side, knocking him down. Something that felt like tree branches scraped along his arms, trying to catch him. The Doctor rolled away. The droning sound deepened and moved in the fog. There was more than one of the things in here.
A gunshot went off. Rory screamed, "Doctor!" And the Doctor realized Dutch was shooting, trying to give him some cover. If he didn't get back to the cab he'd run out of air and fall prey to whatever was in the fog. His nose plugs might buy him some time, as long as he remembered not to breathe through his mouth. But if he delayed too long, Rory and Dutch might fail to close the cabin before the gas got in with them.
He rolled as something large darted at him again. He cleared the fog. He couldn't see any trace of Amy's red shirt. Hearts breaking in his chest, he sprinted for the harvester, jumped, caught Rory's hand and pulled the door shut behind him. Something large rammed into the hatch from the outside.
"Get into the bowels -- away from the glass!" the Doctor yelled. Fog had swamped the harvester -- deadly gray pressing against all the windows. A large form, indistinct in the fog, slammed against the glass, like a boulder. The glass cracked, spider-webbing under the blow.
"Go!" the Doctor yelled, he chivvied Dutch and Rory down the companionway behind the cab. Huge forms beat against the harvester. Shuddering even the massive structure.
The Doctor shoved them into the engine compartment, slammed the hatch and turned the flywheel.
They were safe. Tons of metal and stone stood between them and the outside. But they could still hear the muffled blows. Feel the walls shake.
"Look around," the Doctor said, waving at the engines, he turned on the sonic screwdriver and used it as a flashlight to find the light switch. "Be sure there are no gaps to the outside. Stuff them with your clothing if you have to. We can't let any of that gas get in. Or anything else."
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