Up a Tree p.12
The elevator cage thumped down at the root of the tree.
Amy stepped down onto the jungle floor and stumbled. She righted herself then wavered, “Whoa!” Her head swum, she grabbed onto Rory who was having the same problem.
“What’s going on?” Rory asked, thinking it was an awfully fast jungle fever to have taken hold so quickly.
“Don’t worry about it, miss,” Jute said. “You’re just getting your land legs back.”
Amy scowled and wished the forest would stop rotating. “But we haven’t been at sea.”
“No,” the Doctor said cheerfully, jumping down out of the cage, already looking around. “We’ve been at tree!”
He saw the sour look on Amy’s face. “Sorry.” His grin belied it.
The rest of their hunting party was already assembled, a dozen men and women, busily strapping supplies into the carts. They pushed past the arriving group and started unloading the last of the supplies from the elevator cage.
Amy looked around. They stood in a lee between two of the tree’s giant stanchion roots. It formed a protective base, angled walls on three sides, only open to jungle on the side away from the tree. A safe place to unload and embark and disembark from.
“Huh,” Rory said, looking up. “I expected the trunk to go straight into the ground, like an oak or elm tree.” He laid a hand on one of the giant, wall-like roots that formed the blind alley. It felt cool and gritty under his hand. “But this looks more like one of those trees you’d get in a rainforest. You know, the one’s with all the big vanes on the bottom.”
“Buttress roots,” the Doctor said, inspecting the underside of one of the floating carts cheerfully. He bounced back upright and spun around, his arms spread wide with admiration. “One of the miracles of nature! You’ve got to admit, that’s a lot of tree to hold upright.”
Amy looked up at the top of the root which angled down from the trunk a hundred feet over her head, growing shorter as it spread out toward the jungle. “I feel like I’m at the bottom of a pie wedge.” She scanned the top of the bark barrier and blinked. Just for a second she thought she saw a brown Trelwin head peeking down at her over the root.
She shook her head and looked back down at their group in the foot of the lee. Leaves crunched under her feet, and the rich smell of dirt filled her nose. She had expected there to be some sort of base here. A guard shack, something. But apparently they'd left civilization behind.
She felt like an ant.
She and Rory and the Doctor had moved aside as Erik and his crew assembled their gear and checked their weapons. Erik reached through the bars of the empty elevator cage and yanked a bell pull that dangled there.
With a jolt and a clang, the elevator started lifting back up into the tree.
“Well, now.” He shouldered his rifle and turned, all business. “Introductions first, then we’ll head out for the coordinates of your transfer pod." He turned to his men. They all stood up and paid attention. "You've all heard about the biologists that have been making our lives so interesting these past few days." There was a general murmur and chuckling.
Amy turned red, the Doctor wiggled his fingers in a wave.
"Doctor, Amy, Rory, you’ve met Jute and Shale,” the tall and small men both nodded. “Next we have Jonas, Brian, Eula,” a small, almost pretty man, with an open, honest face. Amy figured this must be the Eula who’d gotten in trouble on bolewatch. “Darcy, Kevin, Pickles,” who, going by the gear he was loading, was the cook. “Bill, Janet, and Silas.”
They all wore the same worn camouflage fatigues and hunting leathers as Erik. And they all sported a variety of knives and heavy artillery.
"Do we get weapons?" Amy asked.
Erik looked up and down her long, skinny, city-clothed form with disdain. "Not for this short a trip, no.
“Let’s get going,” Erik waved to the three of them, “You three stay in the middle of the group where we can protect you. Bill, Janet, you keep an eye on them.” With a wave of his arm, Erik moved his wagon train out.
They trooped out of their artificial canyon, a wagontrain of floating, wood sided carts bobbing along beside them. The area immediately under the tree was fairly clear, still wooded, but not with the density of the actual jungle. It was like there was a small temperate zone right around the base the tree, before the jungle proper took over a little farther out, in full sun.
“Bill?” Amy asked of the tall, heavily muscled woman at her side.
The woman grimaced. “It’s short for Willhelmina,” she admitted.
Amy stifled a smile. “Not Billy?”
The woman glared down at her, a proper valkyrie glare. “Not more than once,” she said in a deep voice.
Amy nodded, grinning. The woman relaxed.
Walking in the jungle took more effort than walking on a pathway. Roots tripped her, bushes had to be skirted around, thorns and ferns and a hundred different types of grass caught at their feet and slowed their progress.
And that was out in the open.
Rory trudged along stolidly, not seeming to notice. The Doctor tripped along happily, nattering on about the beautiful birds and pretty flowers. The hunters proceeded carefully and alert, their weapons at the ready.
Erik led them at a fast walk, uncommunicative.
The Doctor accidentally startled something out of a clump of bushes. It burst out, looking like a knee high guinea pig. It bounded away, squawling like an air raid siren, all its fur fluffed straight out so it looked like a terrified cotton ball.
A rash of cocked guns snapped up, then just as quickly lowered. "It's all right," Bill assured Amy, "It's not dangerous."
Amy would have found the whole thing hilarious, if her heart hadn't been banging in her chest. The Doctor frantically apologized, even as he peered into the jungle after the creature.
-----
They walked for nearly three hours, paralleling the edge of the jungle, skirting the ends of the tree roots.
It was hot in the full sun. Amy could feel herself sweating, but, by the glistening on their arms, so was everyone else. The Doctor had taken off his jacket and tied it around his waist like a teenage girl.
Rory had tossed his puffy jacket in one of the baggage carts. Amy wished she had something to take off. She swiped at her forehead and then fanned the front of her shirt. "How much farther?" she yelled up to Erik.
The big man ignored her. She glared at the back of his head.
Something white swung through the trees at the edge of the jungle. She snapped her head aside to look, but whatever it was was gone.
Twenty minutes later, and one runny hose from an aggressive thornbush (which Bill had hacked back with a handy machete) and Erik turned them back toward the tree. They climbed over the ridge of one of the tree’s long roots (fortunately the rough bark made for easy hand and footholds.)
At the top they looked down on a high root that arched gracefully over a long, crystal clear pool.
The Tardis lay in the bottom.
-----
"How did you know where it was?" Rory asked.
Erik snorted. "Not much use having a high vantage point if you don't use it," he said. The Doctor nodded sagely.
"I expected it to be farther away than this," Amy said as she scrambled down the last few feet to the wide valley at the base of the tree. "This is even closer to the trunk than where we landed."
It was shadowy and cool here, alien birdsong twittered and sang all around them.
"She must have rebounded off the limbs, bouncing closer on the way down," the Doctor said, approaching the pool and appraising the situation.
The Tardis had fallen into 25 feet of water. A stream ran half under the arching roots of the great trees. It gathered into a wide pool here. Moss dripped down from the overarching root, casting shade to add to the shadow from the high canopy overhead. A few sparkles glinted here and there as sunlight shone through the leaves. But otherwise they could see all the way to the bottom, the water as clear as glass.
"It's spring fed," Erik said, noticing their appreciation. "We use the spring as our backup water source after whatever rainfall we gather in the cisterns. It's clean."
In fact it was so clean, Rory noticed, that no fish or critters swam in it, beyond a few water bugs skimming the top and a snake or two gliding through. It was so crystal clear that they could perfectly see the Tardis resting on the sandy bottom.
“Great," Rory said, "Everything's going to be soaked.”
“Rory,” the Doctor said. “The Tardis doors can keep out space and the Time Vortex, I think she can handle a little water.”
-----
“So how are we going to get it out?” Rory asked.
“No problem,” the Doctor said. “I’ll just swim down and pilot her back up here.” He untied his tweed jacket and tossed it to Amy. He shucked out of his braces, and stripped out of his shirt and trousers.
“Oh, not again!” Rory groaned and turned his back. Amy smirked. Rory grimaced at the hunters who'd formed a ring to watch.
The Doctor’s boots knocked against Rory’s ankles as he tossed them aside. "Cannonball!" the Time Lord yelled. There was a splash.
Rory turned around just in time to see the Doctor twist over and dive down, swimming strongly, looking like some exotic species of pale eel in the rippling water. Alien birdcalls and the rustling of leaves punctuated the silence.
The pool dropped off almost immediately in a deep cliff. As the water calmed they could see him swimming around the Tardis, studying it from different angles. He stopped and floated for a minute, watching, bemused, as a family of small green snakes swam by. Then he brushed his hair out of his face, dove down, and started digging at the sandy bottom underneath the edge of the Tardis.
“Your friend can certainly hold his breath a long time,” Erik said, ten minutes later, a bit wide eyed. the other hunters had gathered around, some staring, others watching outward, guns raised.
The Doctor surfaced, hair slicked back like a seal. “Ah, bit of a problem. She’s landed doors down.”
“Can’t you dig under?” Rory asked.
The Doctor swam to the edge and heaved himself out. He shook his head like a dog, water droplets scattering everywhere. Amy jumped at the cool sting of the cold water.
“No,” the Doctor answered, taking his jacket back to dry his hair with. “It’s rock just under the sand. And there’s no shifting her.”
He ducked behind a bush and Rory tossed him his clothes.
“But what about Aaron?” Rory protested.
Amy picked up the Doctor’s boots and chucked them behind the bush to him.
Something hit with a clunk. ““Ouch! ... Thank you, Amy,” he said, dryly. “Don’t worry about Aaron, Rory. He’s stable and in good hands.”
Rory looked at Amy in consternation at that cavalier attitude. Erik ran a hand over his face with worry, but didn’t seem inclined to dispute the Doctor’s observation.
Amy heard a prolonged burst of the sonic from behind the bush. The Doctor yipped a squeal. “Better, lower the setting on this a bit..." he said quite clearly, voice sounding high and pained.
“What did you do?” Amy asked.
“Just, drying my shorts off,” the Doctor replied, nonchalantly.
Amy clapped a hand over her mouth and burst into silent giggles. She bent over, snorting, trying not to make a sound.
The Doctor strode out from behind the bushes, adjusting his braces.
“What’s the matter with you?” he asked, seeing Amy bent over.
Amy chortled and gulped and squeaked out. “Nothing...”
Rory, “helpfully” slapped her on the back.
The Doctor ignored her. “Anyway,” he said, turning to Erik. "I’d love to come with you on your hunt, if that’s okay with you. Amy and Rory can return to the tree if they want.”
“No way,” Rory said. “Who knows what trouble you’d get into without us.”
“Right,” Amy said, having gotten control of herself. She walked up and snapped his braces. “Nice shorts by the way.”
“What?” he asked, offended. “Mickey Mouse is cool!”
-----
The Doctor waved at the Tardis under water. “We’ll have to hoist her up.” He looked at Erik.
“Well, we can’t do it now,” Erik said. “We’re on a silk safari, and we only have a couple of days to find and collect the cocoons before the sunsails start hatching.”
“Wouldn’t it be easier to collect them after they hatched?” Amy asked.
“It would,” Erik answered. “Except the cocoons start deteriorating immediately." He saw Rory’s inquiring look. “Enzymatic action. Beside, the newly hatched sunsails eat them."
"Can't we delay it a couple of days until we get the Tardis out?" Rory asked, waving behind him to the pool. "It's got equipment inside that may help us cure Aaron."
“No, we have to go now. I'm sorry, but there's more people at stake than just Aaron. This safari provides all the silk we need for parachutes for the next year. Without them, we can't live in the tree. It wouldn't be safe. Also we need to find a couple of late-season grubs to train. Once they're hatched, they're useless. So your transport pod will just have to wait.” He waved a hand, beckoning his men. “I’ll assign someone to escort you back up the tree.”
“If it’s all the same, I’d really rather go with you,” the Doctor said. “It sounds fascinating.”
Erik stared at the Doctor, then at Amy’s excited face, then as a last resort at Rory, the only practical one. The young man just shook his head.
Erik stared hard at the Doctor. “You’re the type to follow me if I say no, aren’t you?”
The Doctor grinned.
Erik rubbed a meaty hand over his face, pulling at the skin. “Fine, you stay in sight at all times and listen when someone tells you something.“
He stared hard at the Doctor. “I really hate paperwork.”
“We’ll try not to cause you any,” Rory assured him. Erik didn’t look reassured.
-----
“Okay, Doctor, what gives?” Rory demanded.
“What do you mean?” the Doctor asked innocently, as they followed the assembled hunters toward the jungle.
“Without the Tardis we can’t scan Aaron to find out what’s wrong with him, yet you're fine with that? We’re just going to go tripping off into the jungle looking for butterfly cocoons?” Rory said in disbelief.
“We had two options, Rory. One,” he held up a finger, “find the Tardis and use its equipment to scan Aaron and find out what is going on. Two, find a local expert.”
Rory flopped his arms in the air. “How are we going to do that!”
"I need to talk to Zeke.”
Amy waved her hand in exasperation at the mile high tree over their heads. “But he’s up there! What use is it coming all the way down here?”
“No, he’s not." He looked at them. "Nelda came to my bunk last night. She told me Zeke had left the tree. She also told me more about this “monster” of theirs. Apparently it only attacks Trelwins. They didn't expect it to attack a human, it never has before. But that’s all she knew. Apparently Zeke is the authority on the subject. I need to talk to him, he seems to be the only one who knows what’s going on.”
"I thought it was some sort of disease?" Rory said, frowning.
"It may be. But he's the only one who recognizes the symptoms," the Doctor said.
“So why all the secrecy?” Rory demanded.
The Doctor turned to him. “I want to talk to Zeke before the Yblins get their hands on him. Before they start poking him full of needles and 'examining' him. It's no fun.” He spoke as an alien among humans. “I need to know what he knows.”
“And you expect to find one Trelwin in this whole jungle?” Amy asked.
“No,” he looked up and grinned at her. “I expect one Trelwin in this whole jungle to find me.”
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