Youth is Wasted on the Young p.13
"Those are Wirrn?" Colonel Tildaith asked, surprised.
They were all crowded into the control cabin of the chopper, in the early morning light, going over the scans of the Wirrn again, planning their next move.
"You've heard of Wirrn?" the Doctor asked.
"Only the legends. The first spacefarers in Andromeda learned that the best way to find habitable planets was to 'Follow the Wirrn,'" Tildaith said.
"So you followed them to new planets then went to war with them?" the Doctor demanded.
"War?"Tildaith asked, confused. "They had to burn out a few nests when they'd start to prey on the herds, but..." Tildaith shrugged, as if it was nothing.
The Doctor scrubbed his hands over his face, he muttered behind his hands.
"What, Doctor?" Rory asked, not quite catching it.
The Doctor dropped his hands. "The winning side writes the history."
"What does that mean?" Tildaith asked aggressively, as if he was being doubted.
"Nothing," the Doctor waved it away.
"What exactly are Wirrn?" Dutch asked.
"A spaceborn race native to Andromeda. They only visit planets to refuel their air and water, and to breed."
The Doctor typed in some numbers in the chopper tech board. "These are the last coordinates we had for Amy's tracer." The view shifted to a different area of the wheat fields.
"We overflew those coordinates on the way to the harvester," Tildaith said. "We found nothing."
"Then we're going to check them again," the Doctor said implacably.
Rory held up his hands when it looked like the Doctor and Colonel were about to butt heads. "If they're spacefaring, then we need to find where they've landed. If there's nothing at those coordinates," he said, nodding at the screen, "where do we look?" Rory asked.
"South," the Doctor said. He turned to Dutch. "Am I correct in assuming this farm was the largest population south of the city?"
"Yes." The sheriff settled his hands on his hips, the responsibility for the farm had resettled on him since they'd returned.
"And that fertilizer was stolen south of here," the Doctor continued. "The harvester was south of here. All indications point south.
"What we need is a satellite map," the Doctor said, putting his hands in his pockets.
"I can help with that," Tildaith said.
-----
"Right about there," Amy said, drawing an arc with her finger.
They made the first cut on the wall about as wide as Amy's shoulders. Under the smooth top layer, the wall proved to be a heavy sort of paper mache made of pulped wheat stalks.
Each successive cut was smaller and smaller as they had to rip out layer after layer of the heavy fibers. It took them several hours. Fortunately the monsters hadn't returned, but Amy's fingers grew raw and both their arms had started bleeding again.
They were forced to stop periodically and apply pressure to their arms to stop the bleeding, then take turns cutting and pulling. Eventually they were reduced to using one arm each, one person cutting, the other pulling, the strain making their arms burn.
Amy grunted as she ripped loose another layer of the wall. "I'll never joke about someone not being able to fight their way out of a paper bag again," she said as she tossed the strip aside. The wheat stalks felt hard on her abraded fingers.
Eventually they broke through. With joyful, muffled shouts they stabbed through the wall into another chamber, they ripped the last layer of paper free and peered through into the next room.
It was a chamber similar to the one they were in, but dark. Amy sat back on her heels and massaged her forearm. It felt as bulky as Popeye's from all the work.
She looked at the pathetically small hole. It was only about six inches across, the slanting sides of it making it look like a funnel.
"Well," Stanley said, wiping his forehead on his forearm, still clutching the dulled pen knife. "We're not going to be able to get through there."
"I might," Schwillic said. They turned and looked at the small alien. He hadn't been much help, tripod legs weren't made for pinching, but he'd kept the area around them clear, sweeping the shreds of their labors away and camouflaging them by laying them out around the edges of the cell and brushing dirt over the evidence.
Amy looked between the six inch hole and the eight inch tripod. "Are you sure?"
The hole didn't look big enough for even his small body -- he trundled forward and pressed his top against the hole, looking like a cork in a bottle. They watched in surprise as he squashed the dome of his "head" through -- like pushing a marshmallow through a bottleneck. His legs trembled, straining, then he abruptly tumbled forward, legs whipping after him as he fell through the hole into the next room.
Amy put her finger in her mouth and popped it out. "Pop! Goes the weasel!" she sang merrily.
Stanley grinned at her.
Schwillic appeared on the other side of the hole, looking scratched but okay. "I'll reconnoiter and see if I can find us a way out. Wait here."
Amy looked at Stanley and rolled her eyes. "Yeah, we'll do that."
-----
Schwillic pressed his "head" against the slit door of the next cell, parting it just a fraction and surveying the corridor beyond.
There was one Wirrn keeping guard on their cell, standing across the corridor where he could see the slit door.
Schwillic eased back and trundled back over to the hole. He rachetted down and peered inside. Amy's face looked back. "There's one guard. But he's across the hall, he'll see me if I go out. You need to cause a distraction," he vibrated.
Amy thought about it for a minute, then nodded. "Be ready."
Her face disappeared from the hole. Schwillic trundled back to the slit of the cell and leaned against the crack to look.
"Hey! You! Guard!" He heard Amy's voice yell from the next cell. The Wirrn twitched, but stepped forward and stuck its head in the cell. "We need some water in here. We're not going to be of any use to you if we die of thirst."
Schwillic slipped out of the cell, spun down the corridor and nipped into an archway. The room was piled high with wheat stalks, from floor to ceiling. Schwillic did a quick survey, stuck his head back out the door and saw the Wirrn facing the other way, antenna twitching as he apparently sent a message.
Schwillic spun quickly off down the deserted corridor and around the curve.
-----
While Schwillic was gone, Amy and Stanley kept enlarging the hole, in case they needed it to get out. "Keep it tall and narrow," Amy instructed. "so you can sit in front of it again if they come back."
"You really think that will work twice?" Stanley scoffed, doubtfully.
"It can't hurt to try." She grinned. "The Doctor's fond of saying that. All we have to do is survive long enough for him to find us."
"The dweeb in the bow tie?" Stanley scoffed.
"Hey!" She glared at him, but couldn't contradict him. "Just keep digging."
-----
Schwillic was gone for a long time. They spent the time widening and trimming the hole, tense and ready to jump in front of it at any minute if a Wirrn pushed into the room. But it kept them occupied and not thinking about their predicament. The Wirrn never did bring them any water, Amy didn't know if it was thirst that bothered her more, or the thought that Schwillic may have been caught.
She worried, and worked, Stanley silent beside her. The boy held up his end of the work, but the serious look on his freckled face showed he harbored the same worries and hopes.
Was the tripod caught? Was that why he hadn't returned? Had he managed to find a way out and run for it? If he had, would he bring help? Were the Wirrn just going to leave them here to rot?
Or did they have something else planned?
Amy thought she'd go mad. "So, you got a girlfriend?" she finally asked, just to have something else to think about.
-----
A pink tentacle slipped through the gap in the wall and touched Amy's hand. She almost jumped out of her skin. She'd been caught up in one of Stanley's stories about a pair of colonists he'd helped locate in a swamp, the two lovers had gone out punting without telling anyone. The family had freaked out when they found their son's shirt floating past the home dock in the current and realized he'd been missing all day.
It ended up the two had just gone skinny-dipping in an isolated cove. When Stanley and his crew found them, their tracers had been the only thing on them.
"Oh, you're bad!" Amy laughed. The freckle-faced boy grinned at her with teenage naughtiness, and Amy felt the touch on her hand.
She jumped and bit back a shriek. She glanced toward the door-slit, but apparently their guard hadn't heard.
She knelt and looked into the tall hole they'd dug and found Schwillic on the other side.
"Come on," the tripod said. "I found us a place to hide, and some communications equipment. If one of you can figure it out, we may be able to call for help."
"That's great!" Amy said.
"If it's human communications equipment, I should be able to work it," Stanley said, immodestly.
"Any idea how to get rid of the guard?" Amy asked.
"Yes, I've got a plan." He held up a tentacle when Stanley knelt down to crawl through the hole. "Use the main door," he instructed. "When the guard leaves, run out and go right. The corridor is curved, stop beyond the curve. I'll catch you up." He disappeared from the hole and Amy folded her pen knife shut, put it in her pocket, stood up, brushed herself off, and tiptoed over to the slit, Stanley right behind her.
There was a piercing whistle from outside, seeming to come from the left. There was the shuffling, clicking sound of a Wirrn walking. Amy pressed her eye to the slit just in time to see the guard's abdomen waver off down the hall.
She stuck her head out of the slit and watched the Wirrn walk to an archway down the corridor, it peered inside, and suddenly there was a loud "shooshing" sound and he was engulfed in a wave of falling wheat.
He was quickly buried under the wheatslide, thrashing and chittering in annoyance, unable to see or stand. Schwillic body-surfed down the hill of wheat and landed on all three legs, running.
Amy grinned, turned, and ran.
-----
Schwillic led them through dim, deserted corridors, carefully checking each intersection for Wirrn.
"Where are they?" Amy asked.
Schwillic pointed a leg. "Most of them are off that way," he said, pointing from the direction they'd come from. "I only saw a few through here, checking the bins."
"What bins?" Stanley asked.
They turned a corner into a long hallway. One side of the corridor was lined with a long row of three foot tall open-sided bins. Each bin had a wide tube leading down into it, a few feet in diameter.
"What are those for?" Amy asked. "Wheat storage?"
Schwillic shrugged. "I don't know, I couldn't see in. But they're everywhere."
Stanley looked in the nearest bin, it was round, looking like half a large tube had been cut off at an angle. It was clean inside, whitewashed and apparently enameled. "Well, if a Wirrn does come along, at least we'll have someplace to hide," he said.
They followed Schwillic down the long hallway of empty bins, eyes and ears straining for any sounds of pursuit. Amy heard a weird sort of wet rustling. She stopped, turned her head to try to orient on the sound. There was nothing here but them.
She saw something glistening in one of the bins.
Amy looked in the nearest cubicle. There was a large round thing in it, translucent, milky white, smooth and pliable. About four feet in diameter.
It looked like an egg sac.
There was something in it, dimly seen through the membrane. A boy. Curled up in the fetal position. Something in the egg sac writhed.
It wasn't the boy. He was dead.
Amy turned away. She felt vomit spurt up the back of her throat. She swallowed convulsively. Tears smarted her eyes, she blinked them back. She looked down the long line of cubicles.
Each one held an egg sac.
She turned to the others, "I think I know what use they have for us."
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They were all crowded into the control cabin of the chopper, in the early morning light, going over the scans of the Wirrn again, planning their next move.
"You've heard of Wirrn?" the Doctor asked.
"Only the legends. The first spacefarers in Andromeda learned that the best way to find habitable planets was to 'Follow the Wirrn,'" Tildaith said.
"So you followed them to new planets then went to war with them?" the Doctor demanded.
"War?"Tildaith asked, confused. "They had to burn out a few nests when they'd start to prey on the herds, but..." Tildaith shrugged, as if it was nothing.
The Doctor scrubbed his hands over his face, he muttered behind his hands.
"What, Doctor?" Rory asked, not quite catching it.
The Doctor dropped his hands. "The winning side writes the history."
"What does that mean?" Tildaith asked aggressively, as if he was being doubted.
"Nothing," the Doctor waved it away.
"What exactly are Wirrn?" Dutch asked.
"A spaceborn race native to Andromeda. They only visit planets to refuel their air and water, and to breed."
The Doctor typed in some numbers in the chopper tech board. "These are the last coordinates we had for Amy's tracer." The view shifted to a different area of the wheat fields.
"We overflew those coordinates on the way to the harvester," Tildaith said. "We found nothing."
"Then we're going to check them again," the Doctor said implacably.
Rory held up his hands when it looked like the Doctor and Colonel were about to butt heads. "If they're spacefaring, then we need to find where they've landed. If there's nothing at those coordinates," he said, nodding at the screen, "where do we look?" Rory asked.
"South," the Doctor said. He turned to Dutch. "Am I correct in assuming this farm was the largest population south of the city?"
"Yes." The sheriff settled his hands on his hips, the responsibility for the farm had resettled on him since they'd returned.
"And that fertilizer was stolen south of here," the Doctor continued. "The harvester was south of here. All indications point south.
"What we need is a satellite map," the Doctor said, putting his hands in his pockets.
"I can help with that," Tildaith said.
-----
"Right about there," Amy said, drawing an arc with her finger.
They made the first cut on the wall about as wide as Amy's shoulders. Under the smooth top layer, the wall proved to be a heavy sort of paper mache made of pulped wheat stalks.
Each successive cut was smaller and smaller as they had to rip out layer after layer of the heavy fibers. It took them several hours. Fortunately the monsters hadn't returned, but Amy's fingers grew raw and both their arms had started bleeding again.
They were forced to stop periodically and apply pressure to their arms to stop the bleeding, then take turns cutting and pulling. Eventually they were reduced to using one arm each, one person cutting, the other pulling, the strain making their arms burn.
Amy grunted as she ripped loose another layer of the wall. "I'll never joke about someone not being able to fight their way out of a paper bag again," she said as she tossed the strip aside. The wheat stalks felt hard on her abraded fingers.
Eventually they broke through. With joyful, muffled shouts they stabbed through the wall into another chamber, they ripped the last layer of paper free and peered through into the next room.
It was a chamber similar to the one they were in, but dark. Amy sat back on her heels and massaged her forearm. It felt as bulky as Popeye's from all the work.
She looked at the pathetically small hole. It was only about six inches across, the slanting sides of it making it look like a funnel.
"Well," Stanley said, wiping his forehead on his forearm, still clutching the dulled pen knife. "We're not going to be able to get through there."
"I might," Schwillic said. They turned and looked at the small alien. He hadn't been much help, tripod legs weren't made for pinching, but he'd kept the area around them clear, sweeping the shreds of their labors away and camouflaging them by laying them out around the edges of the cell and brushing dirt over the evidence.
Amy looked between the six inch hole and the eight inch tripod. "Are you sure?"
The hole didn't look big enough for even his small body -- he trundled forward and pressed his top against the hole, looking like a cork in a bottle. They watched in surprise as he squashed the dome of his "head" through -- like pushing a marshmallow through a bottleneck. His legs trembled, straining, then he abruptly tumbled forward, legs whipping after him as he fell through the hole into the next room.
Amy put her finger in her mouth and popped it out. "Pop! Goes the weasel!" she sang merrily.
Stanley grinned at her.
Schwillic appeared on the other side of the hole, looking scratched but okay. "I'll reconnoiter and see if I can find us a way out. Wait here."
Amy looked at Stanley and rolled her eyes. "Yeah, we'll do that."
-----
Schwillic pressed his "head" against the slit door of the next cell, parting it just a fraction and surveying the corridor beyond.
There was one Wirrn keeping guard on their cell, standing across the corridor where he could see the slit door.
Schwillic eased back and trundled back over to the hole. He rachetted down and peered inside. Amy's face looked back. "There's one guard. But he's across the hall, he'll see me if I go out. You need to cause a distraction," he vibrated.
Amy thought about it for a minute, then nodded. "Be ready."
Her face disappeared from the hole. Schwillic trundled back to the slit of the cell and leaned against the crack to look.
"Hey! You! Guard!" He heard Amy's voice yell from the next cell. The Wirrn twitched, but stepped forward and stuck its head in the cell. "We need some water in here. We're not going to be of any use to you if we die of thirst."
Schwillic slipped out of the cell, spun down the corridor and nipped into an archway. The room was piled high with wheat stalks, from floor to ceiling. Schwillic did a quick survey, stuck his head back out the door and saw the Wirrn facing the other way, antenna twitching as he apparently sent a message.
Schwillic spun quickly off down the deserted corridor and around the curve.
-----
While Schwillic was gone, Amy and Stanley kept enlarging the hole, in case they needed it to get out. "Keep it tall and narrow," Amy instructed. "so you can sit in front of it again if they come back."
"You really think that will work twice?" Stanley scoffed, doubtfully.
"It can't hurt to try." She grinned. "The Doctor's fond of saying that. All we have to do is survive long enough for him to find us."
"The dweeb in the bow tie?" Stanley scoffed.
"Hey!" She glared at him, but couldn't contradict him. "Just keep digging."
-----
Schwillic was gone for a long time. They spent the time widening and trimming the hole, tense and ready to jump in front of it at any minute if a Wirrn pushed into the room. But it kept them occupied and not thinking about their predicament. The Wirrn never did bring them any water, Amy didn't know if it was thirst that bothered her more, or the thought that Schwillic may have been caught.
She worried, and worked, Stanley silent beside her. The boy held up his end of the work, but the serious look on his freckled face showed he harbored the same worries and hopes.
Was the tripod caught? Was that why he hadn't returned? Had he managed to find a way out and run for it? If he had, would he bring help? Were the Wirrn just going to leave them here to rot?
Or did they have something else planned?
Amy thought she'd go mad. "So, you got a girlfriend?" she finally asked, just to have something else to think about.
-----
A pink tentacle slipped through the gap in the wall and touched Amy's hand. She almost jumped out of her skin. She'd been caught up in one of Stanley's stories about a pair of colonists he'd helped locate in a swamp, the two lovers had gone out punting without telling anyone. The family had freaked out when they found their son's shirt floating past the home dock in the current and realized he'd been missing all day.
It ended up the two had just gone skinny-dipping in an isolated cove. When Stanley and his crew found them, their tracers had been the only thing on them.
"Oh, you're bad!" Amy laughed. The freckle-faced boy grinned at her with teenage naughtiness, and Amy felt the touch on her hand.
She jumped and bit back a shriek. She glanced toward the door-slit, but apparently their guard hadn't heard.
She knelt and looked into the tall hole they'd dug and found Schwillic on the other side.
"Come on," the tripod said. "I found us a place to hide, and some communications equipment. If one of you can figure it out, we may be able to call for help."
"That's great!" Amy said.
"If it's human communications equipment, I should be able to work it," Stanley said, immodestly.
"Any idea how to get rid of the guard?" Amy asked.
"Yes, I've got a plan." He held up a tentacle when Stanley knelt down to crawl through the hole. "Use the main door," he instructed. "When the guard leaves, run out and go right. The corridor is curved, stop beyond the curve. I'll catch you up." He disappeared from the hole and Amy folded her pen knife shut, put it in her pocket, stood up, brushed herself off, and tiptoed over to the slit, Stanley right behind her.
There was a piercing whistle from outside, seeming to come from the left. There was the shuffling, clicking sound of a Wirrn walking. Amy pressed her eye to the slit just in time to see the guard's abdomen waver off down the hall.
She stuck her head out of the slit and watched the Wirrn walk to an archway down the corridor, it peered inside, and suddenly there was a loud "shooshing" sound and he was engulfed in a wave of falling wheat.
He was quickly buried under the wheatslide, thrashing and chittering in annoyance, unable to see or stand. Schwillic body-surfed down the hill of wheat and landed on all three legs, running.
Amy grinned, turned, and ran.
-----
Schwillic led them through dim, deserted corridors, carefully checking each intersection for Wirrn.
"Where are they?" Amy asked.
Schwillic pointed a leg. "Most of them are off that way," he said, pointing from the direction they'd come from. "I only saw a few through here, checking the bins."
"What bins?" Stanley asked.
They turned a corner into a long hallway. One side of the corridor was lined with a long row of three foot tall open-sided bins. Each bin had a wide tube leading down into it, a few feet in diameter.
"What are those for?" Amy asked. "Wheat storage?"
Schwillic shrugged. "I don't know, I couldn't see in. But they're everywhere."
Stanley looked in the nearest bin, it was round, looking like half a large tube had been cut off at an angle. It was clean inside, whitewashed and apparently enameled. "Well, if a Wirrn does come along, at least we'll have someplace to hide," he said.
They followed Schwillic down the long hallway of empty bins, eyes and ears straining for any sounds of pursuit. Amy heard a weird sort of wet rustling. She stopped, turned her head to try to orient on the sound. There was nothing here but them.
She saw something glistening in one of the bins.
Amy looked in the nearest cubicle. There was a large round thing in it, translucent, milky white, smooth and pliable. About four feet in diameter.
It looked like an egg sac.
There was something in it, dimly seen through the membrane. A boy. Curled up in the fetal position. Something in the egg sac writhed.
It wasn't the boy. He was dead.
Amy turned away. She felt vomit spurt up the back of her throat. She swallowed convulsively. Tears smarted her eyes, she blinked them back. She looked down the long line of cubicles.
Each one held an egg sac.
She turned to the others, "I think I know what use they have for us."
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