Chapter 5 (The Dying Planet)
It was sunny. Holly opened her eyes. White, thin curtains blew gently in the breeze coming from the open window. She had to shield her eyes whilst they got used to the light. She felt relaxed though. Happy and relaxed as she stretched underneath the cotton sheets.
She turned her head to the side. Lilly was sat on the straw armchair beside the bed, reading a book.
“Did I wake you?” asked Lilly, looking up from the pages.
“No,” said Holly. “And you can wake me up any time you want to.”
Lilly smiled at her and closed the book. She was wearing a yellow dress and looked absolutely beautiful. She took off her heels and climbed onto the bed, sitting down next to Holly and looking down at her.
“What?” asked Holly.
“I’m just happy,” said Lilly. She leant in and planted a gentle kiss on Holly’s forehead.
“I’m happy too,” said Holly.
“But it’s not over yet.”
“Sorry?” said Holly.
“There’s something you need to do first. You need to help the Doctor now. It’s the only way you can get back to me.”
The room had grown darker and the sun had disappeared. “This isn’t real, is it?”
“Just a dream, Dangerfield.” Lilly got up off the bed. The room had grown darker and she could now barely make her out. “You need to wake up, Holly.”
“What?”
“Wake up!”
“Lilly?” said Holly, feeling a dull pain in the back of her skull where she’d hit her head.
“What?” said the Doctor. “No, it’s not Lilly. It’s me.”
“Yeah, I know,” said Holly, “just wishful thinking.”
“How are you feeling?”
Holly sat up and swayed slightly. The pain in the back of her head felt worse now. She rubbed the back of her head and there was just enough light for her to check her hand – no blood. That was a good sign. They were sat in a dark cave with rough, grey walls. There was a small opening in the cave which led to a rocky corridor and there were large drag marks from the corridor to where the two of them were sat.
“My head’s hurting,” said Holly. “I must have hit it when I fell.”
“Me too,” said the Doctor. He rubbed the side of his face and winced. “Something took us out with some speed.”
Holly was about to get up and stretch her legs when she realised that they were tied together at the ankles with some crude form of black twine. She looked at the Doctor, a look of worry on her face.
“Yes, I know,” said the Doctor, arching his eyebrows. “Not looking good, is it?”
“Was it that creature from earlier?”
“Highly likely,” said the Doctor. “We seem to be in some sort of cave. Judging by my how my ears have been feeling I’d say we were underground.”
“But how can we breathe?” asked Holly, trying to pick at the tight bindings on her ankles.
“We’re likely still in the confines of the city. I’d expect them to extend the atmospheric bubble down as far as they can go. I don’t really know though. Not my universe, remember?”
Holly was furiously picking away at the twine when a small rock came flying from the corridor and hit her on her knuckles.
“Ow!” she said. “What was that?”
“Someone – or something – throwing stones,” said the Doctor, peering into the darkness. “Come on, show yourself!”
What emerged from the corridor almost made Holly laugh, but she managed to stifle it – the pain in her head made any sudden movements unbearable. A number of what she could only describe as boulders slowly shuffled into the cave. Holly couldn’t really make out what was making them move, but she presumed they had to have had legs. They moved in a strange, shuffling motion. They had strange, spindly, bone-like arms with little, tiny claws and the head was simply another, smaller stone attached to the main body with little red eyes peeking out from between the two.
“Well, hello there,” said the Doctor.
The boulders did not speak. There were four of them and they lined up in front of Holly and the Doctor.
“Do you speak?” asked Holly.
The creatures turned to look at each other and then one of them produced a sharp, flint-like stone and advanced on the two prisoners.
Borshack stood with his hands on his hips, staring at the monitor as the planet came into full view. It looked strangely like Earth – similar placing of continents with only a few differences – but it looked grey. Grey and brown, as if it was dying. On the far side of the planet appeared to be a huge, metallic structure built onto the surface of the planet with giant engines that must have propelled the planet across the solar system.
“Most exciting,” said Dr. Who, his eyes bright.
“Most disturbing,” said Borshack. “Kelly, is that thing giving off any readings?”
“Not many,” said Kelly, checking his console, “but it is similar to Earth in many ways. There seems to be a high level of pollution though – and a large population. Sixty billion life forms on the planet!”
“And this planet just glided into our solar system? Just like that?” asked Borshack, peering closer at the image of the planet.
“It seems that way, sir.”
“Have you tried to open communications with it?” asked Dr. Who.
“Why would we do that?” asked Borshack.
“Good lord, man,” said Dr. Who, shaking his head, “it’s a planet from nowhere. A tenth planet in your nine-planet system. Where is your sense of curiosity?”
“It could be dangerous.”
“It could be, but then we won’t know unless we try and speak.”
“Kelly-”
“No need to open communications, sir,” said Kelly, frowning at the console, “it looks like they are opening communications again. I’m afraid it’s still only audio.”
“Let’s hear them.”
There was a blast of static and then the strange, metallic, electronic voice filtered through the speakers once again.
“Can you clear that up?” asked Dr. Who.
“Working on it,” said Kelly.
The static cleared a little more. They could hear the voice now almost as clear as a bell.
“...to all Earthlings. We request immediate assistance from your planet. Our planet is dying. We must receive assistance immediately or we will die. Our systems are failing. We only had enough power to finish this final push into the solar system. Please respond.”
“Sir?” asked Kelly, waiting to for his orders.
“It could be a trap,” said Borshack, stroking his moustache.
“Don’t you think we should give them the benefit of the doubt?” said Dr. Who.
Borshack looked up to his office. I will need to speak to Earth Central first. If these inhabitants pose a threat we have to be ready.
“But they might be dying up there!” said Susan.
“I still have to follow procedures. Kelly, do not respond until I have backing from EC.” He pointed down at Dr. Who and Susan. “And make sure these two do not leave the command centre. I still don’t know where you’ve come from.”
“Grandfather?” said Susan.
“It’ll all be alright, Susie. Don’t worry. I’m sure the people on that planet are quite friendly.”
“But I don’t understand,” said Holly. “This city has been here for over 25 years. Why are you so worried now?”
The Doctor and Holly had been untied and were sat against the wall of the cave. The strange, rock creatures hadn’t made much sense at first, talking in a strange scraping voice that sounded like rock scraping on rock.
Eventually, after an adjustment of the sonic screwdriver, the voices started to make some kind of sense and eventually full-on English words were coming out of the creature’s odd mouths.
The Doctor had said that it was a case of their TARDIS telepathic circuits not quite being in tune with this alternate universe.
“We were content to let the Humankind settle on our world,” said the lead creature, “but on the dark side they have started to construct another city.”
“And it’s disrupting your race?” asked the Doctor.
The creature nodded its domed head. “My kind moved to the dark side, but where does it stop? We move – they build.”
“But they don’t know about you,” said Holly. “I don’t think they mean you any harm.”
“I’m assuming at some point in the past there were the moon landings in this universe.”
“This universe?” The creature seemed confused.
“There were moon landings, yes?”
“Yes. Their craft came to us.”
“Then why didn’t you make yourselves know then?”
“Why should we?” said the lead creature. “This is our planet.”
Holly sighed. “If strangers turned up at my house I wouldn’t just sit back and hide.”
“We are a private race.”
The Doctor leant back and scratched the back of his neck. “Well, we have to come to some kind of agreement here. They aren’t my people so I can be a mediator between your two races.”
“You have to decide what you want though, because attacking them isn’t the best way forward.”
“They must stop building their places on our world. One is enough. The more they build the more unstable our world becomes. We can breathe in these oxygen pockets, but not forever.”
“I will certainly try and get your point across, Mr...what’s your name?”
“Rock.”
“Rock? That’s it,” said Holly, confused, “just Rock?”
“Does this amuse you, Humankind?”
“No, no,” said Holly, looking worried. “Not at all.”
The Doctor nodded. “It’ll be an honour to assist you, Rock.”
There came a scuffle of urgency from near the cave opening and a smaller, paler looking rock creature came scuttling in. It looked worried (if rocks are even capable of having worries expressions) and almost collided with Rock.
“What is it, Dome?”
“There is something going on above.”
“In the city?”
“No,” said Dome. “Something has appeared in the sky. It looks like another planet.”
“What?” said the Doctor, a worrying thought at the back of his mind. “Another planet?”
“Yes,” said Dome. “It has large rocket engines and it is getting closer to us.”
“No,” said the Doctor.
“What is it?” asked Holly.
“Can you remember the Mondasian Cybermen?”
“Yes,” said Holly. She’d never forget her first trip on board the TARDIS and the run-in with the survivors of the planet Mondas.
“Well, this is an alternate world. I have a bad feeling that the planet up there may be the alternate Cyber Mondasians.”
“But they were friendly.”
“The survivors were. The original ones were very, very dangerous. Who even knows how bad these alternate versions may be!”
To be continued...
No comments:
Post a Comment