Youth is Wasted on the Young p.22
"Not a bad patch job," Janet said, studying the cable that came off of the metal tower at their side. "Somebody knew what they were doing."
"Amy said one of the Wirrn she saw was wearing fertilizer factory overalls. It's possible the person who was converted had electrical training," the Doctor said.
Janet looked up at him in the fading sunlight. He saw her puzzled expression, "The Wirrn grubs can convert a human directly into a Wirrn, when they do, the new Wirrn retains its human knowledge. And we know they must have had at least a few grubs to help them build that hive." He shrugged.
Janet shook her head, her ponytail flopping. "The more I hear about these things the less I like them," she said.
The Doctor grinned, remembering Dutch saying much the same. Like father like daughter.
"Anyway," she said, struggling to her feet and dusting off her knees. The Doctor helped her up. "This cable doesn't have anywhere near the capacity we need. And that's a high voltage direct current line." She waved at the skeletal metal tower high above them. "I don't know what those bugs are using, but we're going to need a converter.”
She kicked at the cable with her good foot. "You want me to disconnect this?" she asked.
The Doctor shook his head. "No, so far they have no idea what we're up to. I'd prefer to keep it that way." He looked out toward the sunset. The waves of wheat rippled in the evening breeze, the electrical lines sang in the wind hundreds of feet over their heads.
He'd hoped they'd be able to get this done today. Time pressed down on him, the longer it took, the closer the Wirrn came to taking over this beautiful world. But the universe stops for no man, not even a Time Lord. The world would turn, night would fall.
"Have you seen all you need here?" he asked.
Janet nodded. She was looking out over the plain in the opposite direction, toward the hump-shaped dome rising out of the fields not nearly far enough away. She was wearing a baseball cap, her blond ponytail poking out the back.
The Doctor grinned at the picture of her. Somehow, wherever there where humans, there were baseball caps. He'd met versions of Janet on every human-occupied world he'd ever visited. Smart, spunky, sassy women who could hand him his head in a heartbeat, with a practical streak a mile wide. She turned away from the hive and looked up at him. "You really think we can do this?" she asked.
He looked down at that innocent, little-girl face and felt something clench in his chest. "Oh yes," he said roughly. For worlds full of Janets he could do anything. He cleared his throat and grinned. "No problem."
-----
They walked back to the sheriff's ATV through the trampled wheat of their initial passage. The last rim of sun fell below the horizon behind them, bathing the white shell of the craft a bloody red.
The Doctor helped Janet clamber inside.
"You get what you need?" Dutch said from the pilot's seat. He'd parked the ATV near the base of the transmission tower, but there was also a military chopper covering them from a few miles farther off, so as not to alert the Wirrn.
"Yeah," Janet said, stumping up to the cockpit and planting a smacking kiss on her father's cheek. He grinned. "Get us out of here. My leg's itching like a sonnabitch and we've got supplies to order."
He tugged affectionately on her ponytail. "Yes, ma'am."
The Doctor dogged the hatch and they restrained in. Dutch lifted them off and flew back along the transmission lines going north. As dusk fell, all of them kept a leery look out the windows for wasps.
-----
While the Doctor was off with Janet, Rory learned how to ride a hoverbike.
The "skids" as he was told they were sometimes called, were completely flat-bottomed, and skimmed over the ground like a maglev train. It was like trying to learn to ride a banana skin.
Hand controls, shifting weight, compensating for speed, height, center of gravity, and angle of momentum took a lot more effort than he'd anticipated.
According to Jeff the military hoverbikes were lumbering monsters compared to the sleek racing hoverbikes he was used to. But Rory still felt oversized, like he was riding a child's dirtbike.
"Remember," Jeff said. "This isn't like a car. You're flying. You don't turn, you bank. Feel the movement, let your body control the turn."
Feet flat on the runnerboards, hands sweaty on the handlegrip controls, Rory twisted the handlebars for power and slid forward. He gathered speed, rushing out along the edge of the tarmac, he shifted his weight and moved farther away from the concrete toward the dirt border edging the fields. The wind whipped past his hair, roaring in his ears, as soldiers and spacecraft flashed past on his right.
Jeff was pacing him on another hoverbike and yelled over, “Make a left turn!”
Rory eased back on one handle and urged forward with the other, he leaned sideways into the turn. The hoverbike went one direction, Rory went the other. With a yell he flew over the handlebars, dirt and wheat flashed past below him, he instinctively ducked, tucked his head in, and landed on his shoulder, rolling through the wheat in a painful somersault. He flopped to a stop on his back, a last mocking shower of grain heads pattered down on him as if the farm was laughing at him.
Jeff glided up on his hoverbike. “You okay?”
Rory just lay there and ached for a minute. “Yeah,” he finally said, getting his breath and heartbeat back.
“Fine. Up you get. Next time, lean the other way when you turn. And don’t punch up so much on your outside throttle,” Jeff said.
Rory groaned his way to his feet, dusted the wheat off his vest and went to fetch the hoverbike which was floating serenely a few yards away.
-----
Rory ached in every bone, dinner had been tasteless he was so tired, and he looked forward to crawling into some bed somewhere and passing out. As soon as he checked on Amy.
The Marine who had cleaned Amy’s clothes had directed him to the mansion laundry. A few inquiries had directed him up to this bedroom, off a corridor which the Marines were using as barracks.
He opened the door and found her asleep, curled up on her side in a too-short Feyanoran bed, wrapped only in towels.
He stopped in the doorway and just looked at her.
She'd been so annoyed with him that he'd volunteered to ride one of the hoverbikes.
But how could he not?
She looked so innocent lying there, her red hair drying in a tangle, long legs curled up, the towel doing double duty as one of her usual miniskirts. Her arm was still bandaged, there were dark bruises under her eyes.
He set her cleaned clothes down on a chair by the door and backed out quietly, closing the door behind him. There was still time to get in some more practice driving the hoverbike.
-----
Knowing that there was no way to set up the substation at night, without the lights warning the Wirrn something was up. Janet had her parts and supplies delivered to the farm by military ATV.
She spent the night drilling the Marines on what went where and how to efficiently assemble the substation, once dawn gave them some light.
The Doctor spent the night poking into everything and getting in everyone's way until Janet chased him off like a hound out of a hen coop.
Rory practiced on his hoverbike, riding circles around the farm tarmac in the floodlights until the Doctor physically dragged him off of it and sent him to bed.
Janet was finally satisfied and sought her own bed, camping out in the ATV with her father, and allowing the Marines to find theirs.
-----
Deep in the night, when everyone else was asleep, a lone hoverbike sped through the fields below the electrical transmission line from Landing to Jacobs City.
The Doctor pulled the hoverbike to a stop in the moonlight at the foot of the high tension electrical tower where they'd found the Wirrn's splice-in.
He settled the hoverbike in the wheat, dismounted and looked around, keeping an ear open for the sound of Wirrn wings.
The stars were brilliant, sharing the sky with a full gibbous moon. The silvery shadows of the tower stretched like some giant wavering spider over the wheat fields, and a sweet, clean, night breeze ruffled his hair.
He stood for a moment in the solitude and tipped his head back, closing his eyes, feeling the soft wind blow around him, the drowsy night sounds of insects and wheat, the peaceful calm of starshine.
He smiled.
With a soft clap of his hands he turned and unstrapped the contraption on the back of the hoverbike, he set it carefully on the ground. He pulled a hammer and stake out of the toolbox and pounded the large stake into the ground at the edge of the wheat field.
He took the contraption he'd brought along, tied one end of it to the stake, and set the blocky, mechanical-dog looking device trundling along into the stalks.
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