Yydell loosened up his concentration to listen to the Doctor's words but straight away the balloon spun out of control; something had torn a large hole through one side of the balloon fabric and another on the other side.
"We're going down!" the Doctor shouted. "Do something."
"I can't!" Yydell shouted back. "We've lost all of our lift."
The basket, its contents and the three figures inside of it plunged downwards at terrific velocity, the frozen landscape of ice and snow getting closer and closer all the time.
The Doctor cradled Grant's head in his arm. "I'm sorry I got you into this Grant."
Yydell saw a shadow pass before his eyes and he screamed as they fast approached the ground below.
No one standing on the surface of the frozen white wasteland saw the impact, the fireball or the huge plume of oily black smoke.
***
"Are they safe?" Shothniq asked her mate.
"One of our ships rescued them," Nithiq stated. "I'm just not sure which one."
***
Yydell opened his eyes wide when he realised that he wasn't dead. He was alone in a darkened room. There was a strange mechanical tone in his ears and it seemed to change pitch every now and again, as if it was part of a regular process. "Hello? Is there anyone here? Doctor? Grant?" No sound except the echoes of his voice. His hand touched something and he looked down to see a body lying next to his own. It was covered in some sort of dark grey web, almost as if a large spider had cocooned a person in its silk prior to feeding on its helpless prey. Working quickly Yydell uncovered the desiccated remains of a body. Whoever this had been they were dead now, he hoped they hadn't been awake when it happened.
***
Grant groaned loudly as the pain inside his head grew more and more. He had been curled up in a ball, as delicate and vulnerable as a foetus. Finally he realised someone was screaming loudly, it was his own screams he was hearing. "What's going on?" he called out. "Where am I?" With no answers forthcoming Grant opened his eyes and saw that he was no longer inside the basket of the balloon. The room he was in was a deep shade of green, darker than the green, green grass of home but lighter than the leaves of the Yew trees that used to grow outside of his house. "Where the hell am I?" he asked. "What's going on?"
***
"I'm getting a report that the Chi'Tak'mos'Ra picked up the three approaching strangers." Nithiq read off the report. "That's Marshall Kiffiqa's flagship. What would it be doing out there?"
"Perhaps it was recalled?" Shothniq hazarded a guess.
"It stays with the Marshall at all times. He lives on it." Nithiq paced around the room. "We must get them off that ship before the Consortium can interrogate them. The Consortium will execute them, they always kill those who are different to us."
"If these are what was foretold then they cannot be harmed."
"Perhaps they will only be unharmed if we rescue them? We'll have to take my flyer, it's the only one with a visibility shield that can mask our approach."
"Those are forbidden," Shothniq stated.
"Only we know about it and we need it. We can debate ethics later, after we rescue the three prophets."
***
Yydell paced around the darkened room, feeling for a wall. The room must be big, but not so big that it didn't have walls. Eventually he found one; it felt clammy to his touch. When he looked at his palm it was covered in a thin dark green liquid. He traced the contour of the wall, for a while before deciding that it must be circular.
***
Grant had also found that he was in some sort of circular room, there were no corners and the walls were coated in a thin greenish liquid that ran out of his hands without leaving any trace behind. He looked about but there were no raised surfaces that could be a door handle and the light source seemed to be non-localised.
***
The chief scientist looked at his underling. "Report."
"Two of the subjects are awake. The third seems to be awake but doesn't respond o his situation. He sits down and does nothing. Occasionally he says 'om' but apart from that he does nothing."
"What a strange outfit. It's almost as repulsive as his features are. These are strange creatures."
"The tall one has limited eyesight, relying on a strong light source to see. He shows little or no fear to his situation."
"I like his skin colour, reminds me of my second wife, her shell was that hue."
"The third one shows a lot of fear, he also displays anxiety but hides both well behind bravado and humour."
"Such a weak thing, no wonder it is scared, it cannot defend itself as well as the others. Reduce the fear impulses into its cell. We are scientists, not torturers."
"Of course. Now what shall we do about the colourful one?"
"He seems stubborn and lazy. Obviously of low intelligence. I suggest we try a different approach. Release it and bring it here to me. I will try to communicate with it."
***
The tiny flyer was only meant for one person, but somehow they both managed to cram all their legs and arms into it. Nithiq managed to steer the antiquated collection of spare parts while Shothniq took charge of the thrusters and brakes.
"We're going to hit it!" Nithiq exclaimed wildly.
"Well you should drive this thing more carefully," Shothniq snapped back.
"Cut engine velocity," Nithiq insisted.
"We're still a mile away from the thing. Big isn't it?" Shothniq looked at the huge silver and gold command ship, bristling with huge laser cannons and other such weapons. Well it would, being a warship wouldn't it?
"They can detect the main thrusters if we get any closer," Nithiq nervously stated.
"Well how are we going to get over there then?" Shothniq asked. "Evolve wings and fly?"
"The ship uses jets of air for stealth manoeuvring. That will be enough to get us over there."
"I know that, I read the drivers manual. It's not enough."
"It's all we've got unless you want us blown out of the sky by a round of laser fire."
"Well it would be quicker and I don't want to have to keep saying I told you so as we spiral downwards to our fiery doom."
"You're right, I'll get them to kill us now," Nithiq retorted. "A quick agonising death is much more preferable to hearing your voice just before I die."
"I'll come back in the next life and nag you for saying that."
"Not if I get there first."
"Just get us closer to the ship okay?"
"I can't believe we're arguing. It's almost like we're married."
"Like I'm that lucky," Shothniq replied.
"Do you want to?"
"Yes."
"Well then if we live through this we'll get married."
"I want a traditional ceremony."
"I'm a reformist."
"You could be a little flexible, it is my wedding day."
"It's my wedding day too."
"That doesn't count, you just have to wear a fly wing gown and look pretty."
"I'm not having this conversation anymore."
"Neither am I."
"Good."
"Good."
They both shut up as they got closer and closer to the target ship.
***
Grant hammered on the wall, his hand clenched tightly into a fist. "Let me out of here!" he shouted. His fist seemed to be bouncing back as if it was hitting a rubber mass and it was soon covered in the thin dark green liquid. "Let me out of here!" he shouted again, this time kicking the base of the wall, mainly for therapeutic reasons.
"Please remain calm," a high-pitched clicking vocabulary asked.
"How do you expect me to remain calm?" Grant shouted at the dislocated voice.
"Intellect governs reason and reason governs the emotions."
"Great, I'm imprisoned god knows where with someone doing a really bad impression of Yoda. Could this be anymore clichΘd?"
"Humour is a defence mechanism. You have no defence against logic; therefore you should be calm and quiet. The internal examination will begin shortly."
"Huh?" Grant's mind was suddenly filled with thoughts of burly customs officers, rubber gloves and a whole lifetime of indignity.
***
Yydell looked around as the lights came on in the room. "At last, a change of scenery. I can't say I'll miss the dark and brooding colour scheme. Tell me, have you ever considered getting a proper job?"
"You would do better to think of yourself."
"Ah, so you've developed speech? Well done."
"Your feeble attempts at sarcasm will not work."
"Ah now but it makes me feel so much better. Now why don't you show yourself to me? Or do you prefer not to face your enemy?"
"You are not our enemy. If you were our enemy you would be dead long before now."
"Buddy, anyone who locks me up in a depressing room like this is not going to get into my good books. In fact I think I may never like you."
"Your friends are co-operating with us, I suggest you do the same."
Yydell grinned. "Suggest all you want, but you can't make me do anything I don't want to do. You can threaten me but you'll never persuade me to do anything that you want."
"Why not? We could kill you."
"If you kill me then I win."
"You would be dead. Do you value life so little?"
"I value life above all, but life without freedom is nothing but ashes. You cannot say anything that will persuade me otherwise. You'll only prove your own logic to be flawed if you try."
"You are intelligent... too intelligent perhaps."
"Me? I'm just a wanderer, an explorer. Now the Doctor, he's a really smart guy. You won't find him nearly so amenable. He has a habit of getting out of tricky situations."
***
"Stand up."
The Doctor remained seated.
"Stand up."
The Doctor yawned and began to examine the cuffs of his jacket.
"Stand up."
The Doctor thrust his hands deeply into his coat pockets and began to sort the contents out into alphabetical order.
"Stand up."
The Doctor closed his eyes and began to meditate.
"Stand up."
Nothing.
"Stand up."
The Doctor's eyes opened slowly.
"Stand up."
"You know you'd attract more of a response with honey instead of shouting a lot. Should know, well I should know better anyway."
"Stand up."
"Oh do shut up, there's a good chap. Can't you see I'm trying to relax?"
"Stand up."
"No."
"You will stand up."
"Nope."
"Stand up."
"Shan't."
"Why?"
"Because you haven't said please."
"Stand up, please."
The Doctor rose to his feet. "There now that wasn't so difficult now was it? Tell me is this place a primitive laboratory or am I being hopelessly optimistic?"
***
They had somehow made it onboard the ship without being noticed. Shothniq cautiously peeked left and right down the corridor before they scuttled out of the cargo bay.
"I wish we had a map," Nithiq stated. "Knowing the name of a ship and its function isn't quite the same as knowing where everything is inside of it."
"There should be signs, telling you where to go."
"Yes, you would think so wouldn't you? Maybe if you've spent your whole life in one of these you don't need them anymore?"
"Sounds implausible, obviously they'll need replacement crew from time to time. Especially if a crew member is with eggs."
"We should pick a direction. What about that way?"
"Sounds fine to me." They set off together in the opposite direction.
***
Grant had had enough of this; he'd had way too much. Blanking the pain out of his mind he beat on the walls with a cold animal intensity. "Get me the hell out of here!" His knuckles were bleeding, a shard of bone protruded through one of the cuts but he ignored these wounds and kept up his fevered anger.
"Please calm yourself."
The voice only fuelled Grant's rage and he redoubled his intensity until a door appeared from nowhere.
"Quick, come with us."
"We'll treat your wounds."
Grant took one look at the strange aliens and his mind finally shut down due to pain and shock. He fell forward onto his face.
"I've always said you've had that effect on people."
"It looked at you."
"It is very ugly and the smell, urgh I hate mammals."
"They do have poor hygiene don't they? Let's get this one out of here. I'll take it to that air yacht we passed earlier. It's roomier than my pod."
"I'll see if the others are around here. I hope they haven't been vivisected yet."
***
The Doctor looked at the two arachnideqsue aliens. "Hello, I suppose you've come to tell me your plan for world domination, gloat over my captivity and then explain in detail how you plan to kill me."
"No, that only happens in movies."
"We wish to rescue you, from this place."
The Doctor stood up. "Well why didn't you say so? We'll have to find Grant and Yydell, they had better be unharmed or I shall be most annoyed."
"We have already rescued them, we shall take you to them."
"Hurry, soldiers will be coming here soon."
The Doctor followed the multi-limbed creatures to a reasonably sized ship where his two friends were resting inside of it. He saw Yydell tending to Grant's hands.
"He tried to force his way out," Yydell guessed. "I think he's broken his left hand in at lest four places and probably two fingers on his right hand and maybe the thumb."
The Doctor looked in Grant's eyes. "He's in shock, we need to get him away from here. Can you fly this thing?"
Nithiq nodded. "Yes, I think."
"He's a good pilot."
"Well as long as he doesn't get us killed then I'll be happy." The Doctor smiled at his rescuers.
The escape was surprisingly quick and easy. They slipped away from the larger ship without difficulty. Nithiq piloted the yacht back to his tower and its secret landing pad.
***
The Doctor and Yydell helped Grant out of the ship while Shothniq set the ship to fly away and explode over the sea.
"Listen to me Grant," the Doctor said slowly. "You are Grant Markham, you are safe. You are safe. You are safe."
Grant looked at the Doctor. "This is a new definition of the word 'safe' I haven't heard then."
"These are friends, they rescued us." The Doctor gestured to their saviours.
"We must maintain prophecy," Shothniq explained.
"You are destined to help us, not be killed by us," Nithiq added. The holy prophecy speak of a traveller who comes from outside of history to help us in our hour of darkest need."
"The nameless wanderer helps those who need help. We engineered your ships failure to draw you to us. We need you to fulfil your task and prevent a great evil from blighting this planet."
The Doctor looked at Nithiq. "You sabotaged the TARDIS? Why? How?"
"It was hard, we used many powerful technologies to manipulate your ship. It is extremely resilient. In the end we explained everything to its computer and it seemed to overload its own systems, although I think we helped it a little."
"The TARDIS is all but ruined! I've managed to scrape together a few bits and pieces to repair the worst damage. Not enough to get me away from here and get a proper refit though."
"We will aid you, we have technology and science to help you."
"That's not the point. Why didn't you just ask?"
"You might have said no, we could not risk that. The death toll would be billions if you refused. We were too afraid to take that chance."
"I see." The Doctor looked at Grant and Yydell. "What do you think? Shall we listen to these two?"
Grant nodded. "I could do with a sit down anyway."
"It never hurts to listen," Yydell replied, sitting down next to Grant.
"Very well," the Doctor replied. "I'm waiting, cut down on the exposition though. Incarceration tends to make me moody."
"Breathing in and out makes him moody," Grant whispered to Yydell.
"I heard that Grant," the Doctor stated.
"Sorry Doctor," Grant semi-apologised, feeling that he did have a valid point but he was sorry for upsetting the Doctor.
"That's quite alright." The Doctor looked at a large book that was suddenly dropped onto his knees. "What's this? Your holy book?"
Nithiq nodded. "You can read them all later, once we've explained everything to you."
Shothniq turned the room lights down and a projection light shone onto one wall.
"I like a good slide show," Grant said to Yydell.
"Sssh." The Doctor shushed his noisy companion up before opening a packet of popcorn rather noisily.
"In the beginning there was Ashinaq and Moshsuq, the primal forces of creation and destruction. They lived in perfect balance, one would create life and after a time the other would destroy it to make way for the next cycle of life. However in time Ashinaq became resentful that Moshsuq was destroying all his beautiful creations. Ashinaq created the Tallamiq and the Shothtar, two races who had intelligence and the ability to fend off Moshsuq's attentions. We of the Tallamiq grew quickly and learned much, we developed science and literature and the Consortium to govern our peoples. The Shothtar were not as developed but they spread their people far and adapted themselves to most places of Callisteron. Yydell is of the Shothtar tribe, he is noble and brave but not very advanced."
"I travel to broaden my understanding of the world," Yydell replied.
"A truly noble trait. Our two races so far have avoided Moshsuq's wrath. We have learned the secrets of fire, weapons and medicine. We have created civilisations that go on even though the individuals die. The holy prophecies speak of a time when Moshsuq will seek to crush our civilisations with a sea of burning rock."
The Doctor looked at a strange picture in one of the books. "That's me, or at least a very good representation of me. That's my previous body, before I died on Androzani. Somehow you knew that I'd come here but you didn't know that I'd regenerate."
"The books reveal much, but they are not very accurate. When Palinaq wrote them he was very old and taking a lot of narcotic plant fumes."
Grant laughed. "Kind of reminds me of Samuel Taylor Coleridge."
"Water, water everywhere and not a drop to drink," the Doctor quoted on reflex. "What can we do to help, if indeed we can help? I'm still not entirely sure about all of this."
"Doubt is healthy, it makes us examine things carefully. Here are detailed geographical readings from the core of Callisteron."
The Doctor looked at the facts and figures. "They show a huge up-welling of magma. With no tectonic plates every volcano on the planet's surface will explode, literally. A sea of burning rock."
"Now you can see why we had to ensure you helped us," Shothniq said to the Doctor.
"If you don't help us, all life on this planet could be lost. Including your own." Nithiq felt ashamed that he had put the Doctor's life in such danger.
The Doctor stood up. "I don't see that we have much choice." He looked at Grant and Yydell. "We've got a lot of work ahead of us, there may be a way but it's not going to be easy..."
