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ISBN - 978-14059-0-804-7-

Printed in Great Britain by Clays Ltd, St Ives pic

JONATHAN GREEN GARY RUSSELL

JONATHAN GREEN

'So, who do you want to see first?' the Doctor

asked. He flicked the floppy fringe of dark hair

out of his eyes with a jerk of his head and fixed

Amy with an intense stare.

She stared back.

He might look like a young man but he had the

oldest eyes in the universe. And he dressed like a

geography teacher.

'Who have we got?'

'How about Michelangelo painting the ceiling

of the Sistine Chapel?' the Doctor suggested.

He danced around the TARDIS's hexagonal

control console, pulling a lever here and cranking

a handle there. 'Or Caravaggio? Or Leonardo Da

Vinci painting the Mona Lisa? Although I've met

him before, so we'd have to time our visit quite

carefully. But of course, it's up to you. So what's it

to be? The Renaissance awaits!'

'Oh, it's so hard to decide,' Amy squealed in

delight. 'It's just so exciting. First I get to meet

Vincent van Gogh and now the Renaissance!'

'I was quite keen on visiting Olympus Mons

on Mars,' said the young man leaning against the

balcony railing. He clearly wasn't expecting good

weather in the Late Middle Ages as he was already

wearing his winter vest. 'Did you know that it's the

largest volcano in the Solar System?'

'In your solar system perhaps,' the Doctor

muttered.

Rory looked at him, a hurt expression on

his face.

'Oh, come on Rory!' the Doctor laughed. 'You

don't want to go to Mars. It's just... red. Very red.

Red everywhere in fact.'

'And what's wrong with red?' Amy asked,

peering at the Doctor from behind a tress of

auburn hair.

'Nothing,' the Doctor backtracked quickly.

'Nothing at all. Lots of great things are red.

Strawberries for instance. Strawberries are great. I

love strawberries. And sunsets. Very lovely things,

sunsets. It's just that Mars is a bit... boring. Well,

dangerous. Actually more like lethal. You might as

well say you want to stop by a Welsh quarry, or a

mining village for that matter.'

The Doctor, Amy and Rory shot each other

several anxious glances.

'Yes,' the Doctor went on, 'let's not go there

again. Not after what happened the last time.'

'Oh, come on, Doctor, I'm only kidding with you.'

Now it was Amy's turn to laugh. 'Besides,' she said,

grabbing Rory by the arm and giving it a squeeze, 'a

bit of culture will be good for you, Mr Pond.'

'Alright,' Rory said, 'just so long as we steer

clear of Venice this time.'

The Doctor and Amy looked at each other

again.

'Good point, well made,' the Doctor said and

flicked a switch on the TARDIS console.

A resounding crash shook the control room.

Amy felt the floor give way beneath her and

suddenly she and Rory were falling. They collided

with the railing surrounding the console platform

and grabbed hold, both winded and shaken.

The Doctor was still clinging onto the control

console itself, looking down at them across the

sloping floor with a startled expression on his face.

'Was that you?' Amy asked.

'No! Of course not,' the Doctor replied.

'Only remember you've been flying this thing

with the brakes on for the last nine hundred years!'

'It's closer to eight hundred actually, but never

mind that now.'

'So, if it wasn't you, Doctor,' Rory cut in, 'what

was it?'

Suddenly the TARDIS lurched again and the

three companions found themselves stumbling

back across the platform the other way.

'Whoa there!' the Doctor yelled, only just

managing to keep a hold of the control console as

Amy and Rory crashed into the barrier on the other

side. 'I think we just collided with something'

'I know I did,' Rory gasped, clutching his side.

'While travelling through time?' Amy screwed

up her face in annoyance. 'Now why doesn't that

surprise me, Doctor? Does that sort of thing

happen a lot?'

'No,' the Doctor replied. 'Not that often

anyway.'

The eerie tolling of the Cloister Bell echoed

from the juddering walls of the control chamber.

'Uh-oh,' Amy said quietly. She shot the Doctor

a look of wild alarm.

'Uh-oh?' Rory said. 'I don't like the sound

of that.'

The Time Lord looked at them. 'Neither do I.'

'So what does it mean?' Amy asked.

'I'd hold onto something if I were you,' the

Doctor said, doing another manic circuit of the

control console.

'Why?' asked Rory.

'Because I think it means we're going to crash.'

The asthmatic wheezing of the TARDIS's engines

filled the room as the Doctor's blue box tumbled

through the Vortex.

'We need to land the old girl and fast!' the Doctor

announced. He grabbed hold of a handle that

looked like it should belong to an old-fashioned

record player and started winding it rapidly.

'What do you want us to do?' Amy shouted

over the howling of the engines as she managed to

grab hold of the console. The doom-laden ringing

of the bell continued to echo around the chamber.

'Pond, keep that crank next to your right hand

steady!'

'This one?' she said, grabbing hold of a lever.

The chamber listed again, pitching them all

sideways.

'No!' the Doctor cried out in alarm. The

red one!'

'Then why didn't you say the red one in the first

place?' Amy protested, correcting her mistake.

'Ugh! Men!'

'What about me? Is there anything I can do?'

Rory asked.

'The blue stabilisers!' the Doctor shouted over

the dreadful wailing of the crashing TARDIS.

'Keep your hands on the blue stabilisers!'

Rory did as he was told.

'Now what?' Amy asked, as the three of them

hung on against the whirling motion of the

TARDIS.

The Doctor watched the rise and fall of the

time rotor for a moment before answering. His

face was bathed in the eerie greeny-orange glow

of the control room lights, making him look like

some weird alien goblin.

'Now hang on!' the Doctor yelled, an expression

of boyish delight on his face, and flicked another

switch. 'Geronimo!'

The TARDIS continued to shake as it spun

faster and faster, whirling through the temporal

turmoil of the Vortex. And then suddenly

it stopped.

Rory slipped from where he had been clinging

onto the control console and landed with a thud

on the platform floor. 'Ow,' he said.

'Where are we?' Amy asked, leaving Rory to

pick himself up off the floor.

'Earth,' the Doctor replied. Pulling a monitor

down from the above the console he took a closer

look, his eyebrows knitting together as he did so.

'Can you be a little more precise than that?'

Amy asked.

'Hmm?' The Doctor turned his attention from

the monitor to his companion. 'Oh, I see what you

mean.' He glanced at the monitor again. 'Oh, you

know, the usual. Nitrogen roughly seventy-eight

per cent. Oxygen twenty per cent. Sunny, with a

slight chance of rain later. A little less pollution

than you're used to but a bit of fresh air never hurt

anyone now, did it?'

'Great,' Amy said, taking Rory by the hand and

making for the door, 'let's take a look outside then!'

'Righty-ho, you do that,' the Doctor called back,

still distracted. 'Just don't... break anything.'

'We'll try not to,' Amy laughed. She paused at

the door, Rory stumbling to a halt behind her. 'Are

you not coming?'

'No, not just yet. You kids go on ahead,' the

Doctor replied. 'I just want to make sure the old

girl's okay. I mean we don't want her blowing up...

again... or anything. Besides, the TARDIS appears

to have detected an anomalous temporal signature

and I want to double-check the readings. You

know, make sure it's not a phase echo from the

collision or anything like that.'

What?' Amy grunted.

The Doctor thought for a moment. 'Wibbly-

wobbly, timey-wimey stuff,' he said at last.

'Okey-dokey. But don't be too long.' Amy

opened the door. 'You don't want to miss out on

all the fun, do you?'

And with that she stepped through.

'Oh.'

'What is it?' Rory started. 'Hey! The ground's

moving.'

'That's because we're not on the ground,' Amy

said, looking around her, eyes wide with surprise.

Rory did the same. 'Oh,' he said quietly.

The creak of cables and the groaning of

steel filled the air around them. A stinging, sea

salt breeze buffeted their faces and ran airy

fingers through their hair. The deck rolled beneath

their feet.

'We're on a ship.'

'I know,' said Amy.

'At sea.'

'I know. And we're not alone.'

Amy returned the stare of the grizzled, weather-

beaten face in front of her, before taking in the rest

of the circle of rough-looking men surrounding

them. They were a mix of nationalities and their

clothes looked strangely dated.

The sailors scowled back at them.

Rory swallowed hard. 'But they're...' His voice

trailed off.

Amy looked from the men to her husband and

back again.

'I know,' she gasped. 'Pirates!'

Rory gave a weary sigh. 'Again?'

'Doctor!' Amy called back through the TARDIS

door. 'I think you should come out now.'

'Yes,' the Doctor replied. His attention was

fixed on the monitor in front of him. 'Just give me

a minute longer, can you?'

He spun a wheel beside him. An image began

to form on the screen. He gasped. 'The crack in

Amelia's wall.'

He twiddled a knob on the side of the monitor,

bringing the image into sharp focus.

'No, not the crack in Amelia's wall! But a

fracture nonetheless. A fracture in time. Several in

fact, and close together.'

'Doctor!' Amy called again. 'We could really do

with your help out here.'

'Yes, yes. All right, I'm coming,' he fussed.

Rummaging in a pocket of his tweed jacket, he

pulled out a crumpled raffle ticket and a stub of

pencil. He smoothed out the ticket and scribbled

down a set of coordinates, before returning both

pencil and paper to his pocket.

The Doctor leapt down the steps from the

control console platform. He skidded across the

floor and threw himself through the door.

'Now, what seems to be the problem?' He

said, blinking in the early morning sunlight that

greeted him.

His arrival was accompanied by the clatter of

weapons being readied and pointed in his direction.

'Ah,' he said, taking in the sailors and the

assor'I'ment of pistols and knives they were holding

in their hands.

Amy, Rory and the Doctor were completely

surrounded.

'You must be the welcoming committee.'

'And you're coming with us,' a large man said in

a voice that rumbled like pebbles being tossed on a

beach. His skin was the colour of polished ebony,

he was wearing a Bosun's cap, and he had a gun in

his hand.

'Right you are then,' the Doctor said.

He took a step forwards, quickly scanning the

rolling deck of the ship, taking in the large black

funnel and the lifeboats secured to the gunwales.

There was the tarry smell of coal in the air. The

TARDIS had materialized at the bow of the tramp

steamer, below the bridge.

'It's this way is it?' he said, jerking a thumb to

his left.

The large Nigerian said nothing. He simply

gestured with his pistol that the Doctor and his

companions should get moving.

The rest of the ship's crew continued to stare

at the three time travellers as they were forced to

move away from the safety of the TARDIS.

'Back to work, the lot of you!' the bosun

shouted. The crowd dispersed as the large man

marched his captives up a staircase of rusted iron

to the deck above.

Amy and Rory were forced to grab onto the

railings as the ship continued to heave under them.

The Doctor bounded up the steps quite happily

without having to hold onto anything.

At the top of the steps the bosun pointed them

towards a rattling wooden door. Passing through

it they entered the bridge of the steam ship. Amy

took in the cabin at a glance. There wasn't a single

piece of electronic equipment visible anywhere. It

was all glass-fronted dials and gauges, and finely

worked metal.

There were two men already inside the cabin.

They were poring over the age-worn maps and

crinkled sea charts spread out on a table between

them. The closest was wearing a white peaked cap,

underneath which his hair was grey and close-

cropped, like his beard. The other, on the far side

of the table, was taller and younger. A luxurious

black moustache adorned his top lip. He was

dressed in a smart, pale linen jacket and plus fours.

Neither man looked up as the Doctor, Rory

and Amy were herded into the cramped cabin.

The bosun cleared his throat loudly.

'What is it, Mr Hayes?' the older man said, still

studying the maps in front of him.

'Stowaways, Captain,' the dark-skinned Mr

Hayes replied. 'We found these three down below.'

It was only then that the two men even bothered

to look up. They took in the Doctor, Amy and

Rory with disdainful glances.

'Captain! A pleasure to meet you,' the Doctor

said. He thrust his hand out towards the older man.

'Just who might you be?' the Captain growled.

'And what are you doing on my ship?'

The Time Lord withdrew his hand and

straightened his bow tie instead. The two men

were glowering at him now. He beamed back at

them, a mischievous sparkle in his eye.

'It's all right,' he said, 'you can trust me. I'm the

Doctor.'

The Captain arched his eyebrows. 'Is that

supposed to mean something to me?' he said.

'No, obviously not,' the Doctor muttered under

his breath, his smile faltering for a second. Then it

was back and he was off again. 'So you must be the

one in charge around here. Excellent! Excellent.

And that would be Captain...?' The Doctor left the

question hanging.

'Bartholomew,' the Captain replied gruffly,

sizing the Doctor up now as if he were an eager

young cabin boy. 'And yes, the Venture is my ship,

but you're mistaken about one thing; I'm not

in charge.'

'That would be me,' the other man said archly,

staring intently at the three stowaways. His

expression softened when it fell upon Amy.

'And you would be?' the Doctor asked.

'Proudfoot. Sir Solomon Proudfoot,' the man

announced in a upper class English accent. He

looked every part the Victorian explorer.

'Proudfoot by name and' - the Doctor glanced

at the man's highly polished shoes — 'Proudfoot by

nature. And a bow tie!' the Time Lord announced

eyeing the explorer's choice of neckwear.

He turned to companions. 'I told you bow ties

were cool.'

'Yeah, right,' Amy said. 'They're right up there

with Stetsons and fezzes.'

The Doctor met the gentleman's scrutinizing

gaze once more.

'So what are you doing out here in the middle

of the' - the Doctor leaned forward, so that he

might get a better look at the maps spread out on

the table top - 'Gulf of Mexico?'

'The Gulf of Mexico?' Rory gasped. You're

rather a long way from home, aren't you?'

'I might ask you the same thing, Doctor,'

Captain Bartholomew retorted, cutting Rory dead

with a sharp look.

'Yes, you well might, but I asked first,' the

Doctor said with a grin.

'We are undertaking an expedition of the

utmost importance,' Sir Solomon said. 'A vital

mission into untamed lands.'

'Would you mind telling me what the time is?'

the Doctor suddenly asked, rocking back on his

heels.

'Why,' Proudfoot said, taking a fob watch on a

chain from a pocket in his waistcoat — something in

the Doctor's tone compelling him to obey without

him even realising it - 'it's about half past eight.'

'Sorry, could you be more specific?' the Doctor

said, checking the watch strapped to his own wrist

now.

The gentleman checked his timepiece again.

'Eight twenty-seven a.m.'

'Even more specific than that?'

'More specific than eight twenty-seven?'

'I mean, what year is it?'

'What year?' Captain Bartholomew echoed in

disbelief. 'Why it's the Year of Our Lord Eighteen

Hundred and Eighty-One, of course. Where have

you been that you don't know what year it is?'

'Oh, places you wouldn't believe!' the Doctor

said.

'Er, I hope you don't mind me asking,' Amy

piped up, 'but aren't you just the teensiest bit

curious as to what we're doing on-board your

ship?'

'She's got a point, you know.' the Doctor said,

smiling broadly at the captain and the expedition

leader.

Sir Solomon Proudfoot opened his mouth, as

if about to answer, a mystified expression on his

face. But before he could do so, a shuddering clang

rocked the ship. The tramp steamer had collided

with something. Something big.

Amy was immediately reminded of the collision

that had occurred within the Vortex, and that had

resulted in the TARDIS being forced to crash-land

on-board the tramp steamer in the first place.

Everyone instinctively grabbed hold of

something so that they weren't thrown across the

cabin by the collision. The captain and Sir Solomon

hung onto the chart table, as did the Doctor. Amy

seized the ship's wheel. The bosun clung onto a

length of iron pipework, his muscles tensing.

Rory failed to grab hold of anything and grunted

as he fell against a pressure gauge. He doubled up

on the floor, his face contorted by pain.

'What was that?' Amy demanded.

'Come on!' the Doctor declared, springing into

action and throwing himself at the door. 'Let's

go see!'

Before the burly bosun could stop him, he was

through. The Nigerian hesitated for a moment,

throwing a desperate glance towards his captain,

and then set off after the Doctor, gun in hand.

'You too!' Amy snapped, grabbing Rory by the

hand. Dragging him after her she set off after the

Doctor and the burly Mr Hayes.

The Doctor was already halfway across the

deck. He was heading for the port bow. A cluster

of crewmen were already there, peering over

the rusting gunwales of the ship at the seething

sea below.

Amy and Rory joined the Doctor and the

sailors as a blunt-headed monster erupted from

the churning waters. It was all fangs and fury, and

ready to consume them all.

The time travellers and the sailors threw

themselves backwards as the huge jaws snapped

shut, catching nothing but empty air.

Amidst the spray Amy glimpsed a huge dark

shape. For a moment it seemed to blot out the sun.

And then the thing was falling again, hitting the

sea with a huge splash that threw another crashing

wave across the deck of the tramp steamer.

As the sailors backed away from the edge of

the ship, the Doctor — his hair and clothes soaked

through by the sudden tsunami - leapt to his feet

and was at the gunwale again in seconds. Leaning

out over the side of the ship it looked like he might

actually dive into the ocean after the monster.

Unable to conquer her own curiosity, Amy

joined him. Her husband was there at her side a

moment later although he was noticeably less

enthusiastic.

'What was that?' Amy asked, scouring the

churning waters on the port side of the ship. Was

that what we hit?'

'I can't be certain,' the Doctor said, 'but I think -'

Before he could finish whatever it was he was

going to say, the Doctor suddenly climbed onto the

gunwale. Supporting himself with a hand around

one of the steel cables that connected to the mast

he pointed at the sea with a furious stabbing finger.

'Thar she blows!'

Amy and Rory looked. Fifty metres out from

the boat a dark silhouette moved beneath the

waters with all the menace of a circling shark. Only

it wasn't a shark, Amy was certain of that.

'What is it?' Rory demanded, his voice wavering.

'I mean it has to be - what? - at least thirty

metres long!'

'I know,' said the Doctor, his voice almost a

whisper, 'fantastic, isn't it?'

With a sudden flick of its tail, the submerged

creature turned sharply and began to swim back

towards the Venture, great paddle-like flippers

pulling it through the water. As it came closer,

the bright morning sunlight penetrating the water

revealed a hide dappled blue and grey. A ridged

spine ran the length of its back and its head alone

had to be the size of one of the Venture's lifeboats.

It was a truly awesome sight. And it was heading

right for the ship.

'You beauty!' the Doctor gasped, in delight.

'So what is it, Doctor?' Amy asked again.

'I mean, apart from some kind of terrible

sea monster?'

'It's an adult Liopleurodon,' the Doctor said,

grinning like a schoolboy.

'A Lio-what?' Amy said. She was unable to take

her eyes off the leviathan slicing through the sea

towards them.

'It's a dinosaur, isn't it?' Rory butted in. 'What

you're trying to say is that there's a dinosaur about

to attack the ship. Isn't that right, Doctor?'

The Doctor shot the young man a delighted

smile. 'Fabulous, isn't it?'

Rory looked at the Doctor, his mouth open in

amazement which was slowly turning into a smile

all of his own.

'Course it is!' The Doctor turned back to his

observation of the approaching sea monster.

'Liopleurodon Saevus, a prehistoric predator that

called the warm shallow seas of the Mesozoic

era home,' he went on. 'The middle Jurassic to

be precise.'

'But I thought this was supposed to be 1881,'

Rory pointed out.

'That was what the Captain said,' Amy agreed.

'Then what's a dinosaur doing in the Caribbean

in 1881?'

'Looks like the crawl to me,' the Time Lord

said, a twinkle in his eye.

'What?'

'Sorry, couldn't resist,' the Doctor replied. 'And

besides, it's the Gulf of Mexico, not the Caribbean;

you're a couple of hundred miles out.'

Rory scowled. 'Well, I suppose if you're going

to dress like a geography teacher...'

'I bet the creature's being here has got something

to do with the time fracture the TARDIS detected

when we landed,' the Doctor went on, ignoring

Rory's last comment.

'Time fracture?' Amy said. 'Like the crack in my

bedroom wall?'

'Yes, but no. Not that time fracture. Not a crack

in the skin of the universe.'

Amy's anxious expression softened in relief.

'So what's causing this one?' Rory asked.

'Again with the good questions. You don't miss

a trick, do you, Rory? But it's actually 'these' if

we're being precise. There's more than one.'

'It's coming round again!' the bosun's booming

voice came from behind them.

'Ready weapons, take aim and prepare to fire

on my mark!' he commanded the crew. The sailors

were even now rallying at the bow, taking up

whatever weapons they had to hand.

'What?' the Doctor exclaimed, spinning round.

His feet teetered on the edge of the ship. 'No! No

guns!' he commanded, waving the approaching

crewmen away. 'I will not allow it! You will not

harm this beautiful creature.'

From his position on the deck, Mr Hayes

looked from the sea monster to the Doctor and

back again. His features were set hard and he was

still tracking the Liopleurodon's approach with the

pistol in his hand.

'It won't attack you if you don't attack it first,'

the Doctor told the wavering crewmen.

'But it's attacked us once already!'

Captain Bartholomew's voice rang out across

the deck, over the crash of the waves and the

twang of the wind in the ship's cables. Such was

the power of the Captain's words, and the respect

he commanded from his crew, that many of those

present turned their eyes from the leviathan to

face him.

'You don't know that!' the Doctor insisted.

'How can you say that?' Sir Solomon Proudfoot

demanded, standing at the Captain's side on the

deck outside the cabin.

'The collision could have been an accident,' the

Doctor said. 'Pure chance.'

'Or it could have been protecting its territory,'

Rory suggested.

'Look, Rory, you're not helping,' the Doctor

hissed.

'Well accident or no, we're in its territory,'

Captain Bartholomew stated darkly, 'and now

it's angry.'

All eyes turned back to the sleek shadow

sliding through the water with all the speed of a

motorboat. There could be no doubt now as to its

intention now.

The monster was on a collision course with

the ship.

'Hold fire!' the Doctor commanded.

The sailors craned their heads to see more

clearly as the monster's blunt snout came within

reach of the ship once more.

The sound of several weapons been primed

echoed across the deck. Mr Hayes' weapon was

amongst them. 'I said hold your fire!' the Doctor

roared.

An uneasy stillness descended over the deck

of the rocking ship. The only sounds Amy could

hear were the splash of the waves against the hull

and the deep, throbbing rumble coming from the

ship's engine room somewhere below deck.

The Doctor remained frozen, balanced on the

gunwale of the ship, as the ancient leviathan drew

alongside the Venture.

But rather than attack, this time the beast dived

and slid under the hull of the ship. It left all those

watching from on deck in no doubt as to just how

vast it was and the potential power locked within

its monstrous form.

The Doctor, Amy and Rory - along with the

explorer Proudfoot, Captain Bartholomew and all

his crew — watched as the beast passed beneath

the tramp steamer. The expressions on some

of the sailors' faces suggested that they were

half expecting the monster to surface whilst under

the boat.

Amy's mind filled with doubts. Perhaps the

creature was indeed planning on tipping them all

into the sea. If they ended up in the water it would

be able to finish them off with ease.

'We're going to need a bigger boat,' Rory

breathed.

An appalling grating sound shuddered through

the ship. There was a sharp intake of breath from

all those on deck as the liopleurodon's ridged back

scraped the barnacles from the ship's keel.

A moment later the monster appeared on the

other side of the steamer. The crew hurried across

the deck after it, keen not to lose sight of the beast,

preferring to know exactly where it was at all times.

The Doctor let out a sigh of relief.

'You were right,' Amy said. She watched as the

monster zigzagged through the water, all muscle

and menace.

'Yes, that was lucky, wasn't it?' the Doctor said,

sounding almost as surprised as his companion.

'Right, we haven't got a moment to lose.' He

jumped down from his perch on the gunwale and

was suddenly racing back towards the bridge.

'We need to get away from this spot as

quickly as we can, while we still can, before that

beauty changes its mind!' he called to Captain

Bartholomew.

'Since when did the captain of the Venture start

taking orders from stowaways?' the captain growled.

'You said it yourself. We're in what the

Liopleurodon considers to be its territory. Think

of that last swim past as a shot across the bows. It's

giving you the chance to turn round and get out of

here, and if I were you I'd make the most of the

opportunity and skedaddle. Ooh, skedaddle. That's

a word I haven't used in a long time. Skedaddle!'

'Doctor?' Amy said through gritted teeth.

'Oh yes, sorry. Where was I? Oh, that's right.

Captain Bartholomew, I believe you were about to

give the order?'

'Back to your stations!' the Captain shouted.

The crew scattered at his command.

'Now, I want you to follow the bearing I'm

going to give you,' the Doctor had to shout to

be heard over the hubbub of activity that had

suddenly broken out on deck. As he ran, he pulled

the crushed raffle ticket from his pocket.

'And what bearing would that be, Doctor?' the

Captain demanded.

'Again with the orders,' Amy muttered, watching

Captain Bartholomew anxiously.

The Time Lord consulted the scrap of paper

in his hand, turned it the right way up and checked

it again. Whipping out a silver and bronze pen-

like device he depressed a switch on its side. The

end of the device sprang open like some rare

metallic flower and it began to emit a high-pitched

buzzing whine.

'Well, to put it simply,' he said, turning and

pointing back beyond the dipping prow of the

ship, 'that way.'

Amy and Rory followed the Doctor's finger

and saw, on the distant horizon, a dark green line

of vegetation. It was land; it had to be.

'Well that's handy, isn't it?' Captain Bartholomew

replied, his voice low and menacing. 'Because that's

the way we're already headed.'

The liopleurodon was almost out of sight now

as it continued to course backwards and forwards

through the sea like a cross between a giant

crocodile and the Loch Ness Monster.

'And, just out of interest, what do you expect to

find when you get to wherever it is you're going?'

the Doctor asked, whilst avoiding the captain's

stony gaze.

An eerie silence descended over the Venture at

that one innocent remark.

Amy turned. A lone figure was emerging from

the throng of crewmen milling about the deck, the

sailors moving out of his way as he passed by.

He looked old. His arms were thin, his legs

spindly and his skin was the colour of old leather.

His clothes were little better than rags. He looked

like a scarecrow. His face was lined with wrinkles

while on top of his head he was wearing a scuffed

and scratched pith helmet. An untidy handlebar

moustache, the colour of sun-bleached seashells,

bristled from his top lip.

'Nice hat!' the Doctor remarked.

The strange old man peered at the Doctor and

his companions from beneath beetling brows.

'We're headed into the unknown,' he said. There

was a strange, sing-song quality to his voice. Amy

wondered if he was suffering from sunstroke.

'The unknown, that's the ticket!' the Doctor

exclaimed, clapping his hands together and

spinning on his heel. 'How exciting!'

'We're searching for the fountain,' the old man

continued.

'What fountain?' Amy asked, moving herself

closer to the Doctor.

'What fountain?' the old man chuckled. What

fountain? Why, the fountain, of course. The

fountain of legend. Ponce de Leon's prize.'

'Poncey who?' Rory butted in.

The old man suddenly turned on the young

man, a manic gleam in his beady black eyes.

'The Fountain of Youth!'

The Doctor looked the old man up and down,

clearly intrigued and enchanted by this raggedy

individual.

'The Fountain of Youth, eh?' he said, the

sparkle in his own ancient eyes mirroring the glint

of mania in this strange character's spritely gaze.

'And who might you be?'

'Ishmael Cain, sah!' the old man saluted, pulling

himself up to his full height of five-foot-nothing.

Amy put a hand to her mouth to stop herself from

giggling. He looked far too stringy and bony to

have ever been a soldier.

'Very good,' the Doctor said.

'I already know who you are, sah!'

'You do?' There was a note of surprise in his

voice.

'Oh yes, sah! You're the Doctor!'

'That's right. I think I said as much when we

first arrived.' The Doctor eyed the circle of sailors

slowly closing around them.

'But that's just it, isn't it Doctor?' the mad old

man went on. 'Where did you and the good lady

and gentleman arrive from?'

At this Amy and Rory shared wary glances with

each other. She had thought it strange that no one

on-board the Victorian tramp steamer had asked

where they had come from before.

'You sail your blue ship on stranger tides than

these, setting your course by other stars than those

we know,' the old man said, waving his hands

wildly at the cloudless blue sky above.

'Is that so?' the Doctor replied, captivated by

the crazed pith helmet-wearing prophet now. 'And

how would you know that?'

Ishmael Cain stepped forward and leaned in

close to the Doctor. In what was little more than

a husky whisper he said, 'Same way I know what's

really going on around here,' and tapped his nose

with a finger.

'And what is going on around here?' the Doctor

muttered in return.

'They came out of the storm,' Ishmael

whispered, conspiratorially, 'on wings of fi—'

'Ishmael!' the Captain's strident tones carried

across the deck. 'Leave our guests in peace.'

Shooting the bristle-bearded Bartholomew an

anxious look, the old man retreated back into the

throng of sailors without saying another word.

Turning, Amy caught sight of the cruel

expression on the Captain's face.

'And the rest of you, back to work. We have

our heading.'

Amy found herself unable to take her eyes off

the strange, sun-crazed old man. He looked like he

could have stepped out of the pages of Treasure

Island or Robinson Crusoe. If it wasn't for the fact

that he was on-board the tramp steamer she might

have taken him for a castaway.

'I was just thinking the same thing,' the Doctor

said, suddenly there at her shoulder.

'What?' she asked.

'Where they picked that one up from, of

course,' he replied, peering from below his floppy

fringe at the retreating Ishmael.

'Oh, is that right?' Amy countered.

'That, and what must have happened for him to

end up like that.'

Its boiler fire well stoked and its engine chugging

away furiously, the Venture ploughed a furrow

through the rolling waves. Leaving the massive

Mesozoic marine predator patrolling the warm

waters of the Gulf of Mexico, the ship headed

east. An ever-expanding line of trees was now

clearly visible on the horizon.

As the sun reached its highest point in the

heavens at noon, the tramp steamer made it to

the shallower waters off the coast. Once there,

Captain Bartholomew at last gave the order for the

crew to weigh anchor.

The Doctor was leaning out over the prow of

the ship, arms outstretched looking like he was he

was about to take a dive into the crystal clear waters

below. 'Ladies and gentlemen!' he announced with

great gusto. 'Welcome to Florida!'

'Florida?' Amy and Rory gasped.

'Where did you think we were going?' The

mop-haired man turned, presenting them with a

broad grin. 'Where else would you find the fabled

Fountain of Youth?'

'Yeah, I've been meaning to ask you about that,'

Rory piped up. It had been all hands on deck since

the Captain had said the three stowaways could stay.

After some debate with his employer Sir Solomon

Proudfoot, he had declared that they would have

to work their passage. There had hardly been time

to catch breath, never mind to waste it in idle chit-

chat. 'I mean what's the deal there? I've heard of

it, of course, along with Blackbeard —'

'Did I ever tell you that I met him once?' the

Doctor interrupted.

'Who? Blackbeard?'

'Well, one version of him.'

'You're name-dropping again, Doctor,' Amy

said, scolding him with a smile.

'Anyway, back to the Fountain of Youth,' Rory

said pointedly. 'It really does exist then, does it?'

'Does it?' the Doctor said, his smile broadening.

'Come on, Doctor. A simple 'yes' or 'no' would do.'

'We'll just have to wait and see for ourselves,

won't we?'

'You really think it could be out there, Doctor?'

Amy asked.

'Why not? All legends have some basis in fact.

I'll bet you didn't used to believe in vampires,

or homo reptilia, or the power of dreams, or

shape-changers,' he said, looking from one to the

other with a twinkle in his eye, 'but you do now,

don't you?'

'Yes, of course,' Rory said. 'After what we've

seen how could we not?'

'Then the Fountain of Youth could well exist

too. At least, there could be something lurking

at the heart of the Everglades doing a very good

impression of a Fountain of Youth.'

'And Proudfoot thinks he's going to find it

here?' Amy said.

'Well, why not? I mean reports go back centuries

about a magical spring that restores the youth of

anyone who drinks of its waters. Herodotus wrote

about it, and it appears in the stories of Prester

John. According to one legend, the Spanish

explorer Juan Ponce de Leon was searching for

it when he travelled to Florida in the sixteenth

century — although it wasn't called that then, of

course — so why shouldn't it be there?'

'Have you never thought to look for it yourself,

Doctor?' Rory asked.

'Nah,' the Doctor replied, running a hand

through his 'Yousled mop of dark hair. 'I mean

when you've lived for centuries already and have

the ability to regenerate every cell in your body —'

'The ultimate face-lift,' Amy said with a smile.

'- then a mythical fountain that restores your

youth doesn't seem like such a novelty.'

'I went to Florida once, when I was six. My

parents took me to Disneyworld,' Rory said.

'Really?' the Doctor said, although it was clear

to Amy that he wasn't really listening.

'Yeah. Couldn't get my head round how big the

mouse was. Freaked me out.'

'Well I doubt you'll be seeing many mice this

time around,' the Doctor said, examining his sonic

screwdriver intently.

'How come?'

'The pythons and alligators will have eaten all

the mice, I expect.'

'Not to mention any other prehistoric monsters

that might just happen to be hanging out in the

jungle,' Amy said.

'Not jungle — mangrove swamps,' the Doctor

corrected her. 'They really are quite beautiful, you

know? Dripping with orchids.'

'Whatever. Anyway, what are the chances it's all

going to be just a teensy bit Jurassic Park in there?'

'I preferred The Land that Time Forgot,' Rory

threw in.

'What?'

'It's a classic. Stop motion, none of your

soulless CGI. I used to love watching the re-runs

on Sunday afternoon telly.'

'Well it's a good thing you've got us to keep you

entertained now, isn't it?' Amy laughed, putting her

arm through his. 'So what now, Doctor?'

'Now, we go ashore,' Sir Solomon Proudfoot

said.

The Doctor and his companions turned.

The explorer was advancing across the deck

behind them.

'All of us?' Rory asked.

'But of course,' Proudfoot said, making his way

over to the side of the steamer. Some of the crew

were already lowering a lifeboat into the water.

The explorer pointed at the crates and canvas bags

that had been loaded into it. Who's going to carry

all this otherwise?'

Amy caught the gleam in his eye as one corner

of his mouth curled upwards.

She skipped over to the edge of the ship,

dragging Rory with her, eager to be one of the

first to disembark.

'Hang on,' she said, stopping abruptly. She

looked down at herself.

She was wearing a vintage bomber jacket,

denim shorts and her sleeveless tan top. Glancing

up again she met Sir Solomon's gaze as well as that

of her husband.

'I'm not really dressed for jungle trekking, am I?'

'None of us are,' the Doctor said, squeezing

past all of them.

'But do you think I could just pop back to the

TARDIS and change?'

'We'll miss the boat if we have to wait for you

to choose a new outfit,' Rory threw in.

The Doctor snorted with laughter.

Amy scowled at them both.

'He's right you know.' Amy's scowl deepened.

'What?' the Doctor protested. 'I was only making

an observation. Don't have a go at me — I'm not

your husband,' before adding under his breath,

'thank goodness.'

'What did you say?' Amy snapped.

'My, is that the time?' the Doctor announced,

suddenly peering at the watch strapped to his wrist

with unusual interest. 'Come on, we sail with the

tide! And you know what they say about time and

the tide.'

'They wait for no man?' Amy offered.

'That's right, and they're not going to wait for

you either, Pond, so get in that boat.'

Practically everyone on-board The Venture,

other than Captain Bartholomew and a few

Chinese ratings, piled into three of the steamship's

lifeboats that had already been winched down into

the water.

Sir Solomon Proudfoot boarded the first boat,

along with various members of the crew. The men

had to squeeze themselves in between the wooden

crates and all manner of camping equipment. It

looked like the explorer had packed anything and

everything he might need for the expedition ahead.

Amy, Rory and the Doctor boarded the second

boat under the watchful eye of Mr Hayes. It was

clear from the bosun's grim expression that he

wasn't ready to trust these strange stowaways just

yet.

Proudfoot's boat was already negotiating the

low reefs and shoals that lay between The Venture

and the shore. As Mr Hayes was readying their

craft for the off they were joined by Ishmael Cain.

He was clutching a mop — one normally used for

swabbing the decks - as if it was a rifle and he had

his pith helmet pushed down hard on his head.

Squeezing himself into the boat beside the

Doctor he called out, 'Ready when you are,

Mr Hayes!'

With the sailors pulling hard on the oars, the

second lifeboat set off for the shore.

Having also successfully navigated the low

rocks of the reef, they followed the first boat up

the coast to the point where a wide river estuary

joined the sea. From there they headed upstream,

into the steamy clutches of the mangrove swamps.

As the trees closed over their heads, they entered

the eerie green gloom of the Everglades. Strange

chittering and hooting cries echoed between the

knotted roots and branches, whilst loud bird calls

rang from the forest canopy.

Amy shuffled closer to her husband, taking his

arm in hers again. She scanned the densely-packed

trees on either side of the river. She thought the

sailors looked just as anxious as she was feeling.

The Doctor, on the other hand, appeared to be

entirely unperturbed. He had one eye on his sonic

screwdriver which he was pointing towards the

prow of their boat.

'Do you know something?' Ishmael suddenly

whispered. His knuckles whitened as he tightened

his grip on the imaginary rifle he was holding.

'And what's that?' Amy asked, happy to have

something else to distract her for a moment.

Her nose wrinkled. The old man smelt of salt

and stale sweat.

'Do you know what the old mapmakers used to

write on their maps of this region, on their charts

of the Florida peninsula?'

'No, what?'

Ishmael glanced left and right, as if worried

that something beyond the boat, lurking in the

green gloom, might overhear him, before finally

fixing Amy and Rory with a piercing stare.

'Here be dragons!'

Amy and Rory spent the last leg of the journey

upriver in silence. They continued to scan the

forest beyond the banks of the river, half expecting

a dragon — or something very much like one — to

burst from the jungle roaring, ready to devour

them all. The Doctor, meanwhile, sat happily

chatting with the deranged Ishmael, occasionally

checking their course using his sonic screwdriver.

The further they travelled upstream the closer

the river's banks came, until they were passing

through a winding gorge of water-cut limestone

draped with vines. The river itself was becoming

faster-flowing and there were more and more rocks

visible just beneath the surface. The croaking cries

of birds ringing through the trees were drowned

by the roar of white water as the three lifeboats

drew nearer to the boulder-strewn rapids.

The churning cascades created a natural barrier

that prevented the expedition from travelling any

further by boat. Sir Solomon Proudfoot ordered

that they put into the shore and secure the boats

before unloading them, ready to continue on

foot. Whatever it was that was inside the wooden

crates was carefully transferred into backpacks.

These were then hoisted onto the backs of the

sailors and one was even given to Rory. When it

was Amy's and the Doctor's turn to get loaded up,

there weren't any backpacks left.

Once all was ready, the party continued on

its winding way, ever deeper into the primeval

landscape. Sir Solomon led the way, machete in

hand, hacking a path through the undergrowth.

He was joined by two other crewmen who also set

about attacking the forest with powerful swipes of

their heavy knives.

Fat insects laboured through the humid air.

The cloying atmosphere was thick with the peaty

smells of rotting vegetable matter and damp earth.

Already soaked in sweat, Amy had taken off

her jacket and tied it around her waist. Rory had

done the same with his winter vest, securing it

to the belt on his trousers. Sweat dripped from

the faces of the men hacking a path through the

forest. Proudfoot was forced to stop regularly in

order to wipe the perspiration from his eyes so

that he could see where he was going.

Nobody spoke; the heat sapped their energy.

It was hard enough simply to keep walking in the

prickly heat. They certainly didn't have enough

strength left for idle talk.

Only the Doctor seemed unaffected by the

heat, although even he had slung his jacket over

one shoulder and rolled up his shirt sleeves.

Sir Solomon had rolled up his sleeves too and

Amy couldn't help but notice the strange copper-

coloured bracelet he wore on his left wrist. She

wondered if it was a relic he had picked up during

a previous adventure.

It felt to Amy like they had been walking for

hours when the smothering undergrowth parted

at last and they found themselves walking across

a valley basin. The natural bowl it formed in the

landscape was a lush pasture. Thick fern fronds

rose to knee height between well-spaced spindly

palms.

'Look,' the Doctor said. He was gazing

around the humid forest with child-like wonder.

'Epiphytes.'

'Bless you,' Amy said automatically.

The Time Lord scowled and pointed. A mass of

fern-like leaves and brilliant red and purple flowers

were growing from cracks in the bark of a cypress

tree. 'No, I mean look at those bromeliads.'

'And again. You've really got it bad, haven't

you, Doctor?'

'What is it,' chuckled Rory, 'hay fever?'

'We're getting closer,' Ishmael muttered. His

voice was little more than a harsh whisper that

only the Doctor and his companions could hear.

'Closer to the fountain?' Rory whispered back.

'He's right, you know,' the Doctor said, checking

the readings on his sonic screwdriver again.

'How do you know?' Rory asked Ishmael.

'I can feel it,' Ishmael replied in answer to Rory's

question. 'In here,' he added, tapping his head with

a wizened, claw-like finger.

'What was that?' Amy hissed.

Everyone froze.

'Can you feel that too, or is it just me?'

She could feel the ground shuddering beneath

her feet.

'No, Pond, it's not just you,' the Doctor said,

shooting wary glances in all directions around the

vast clearing.

'There!' someone suddenly shouted from the

head of the line. 'Up ahead!'

Ishmael made a noise at the back of his throat

like a wet leopard growl.

'Something's coming,' he said.

It was as if the jungle had come to life, the trees

and bushes in front of them shaking violently.

With a wet splintering sound, a pair of saplings

came crashing down and the first of the animals

burst from the forest.

Crashing through the undergrowth towards

them was a beast the size of a tank and with the

armour to match. Its mottled green and brown

hide was rough and knobbly. But it was the array

of plates lined up along its back and heavily-spiked

tail that made it instantly recognisable.

Amy remained exactly where she was as the

creature charged towards them. The huge animal

opened its beaked mouth and gave a sonorous

hooting bellow. Proudfoot's party had already

broken up as the men attempted to scramble out

of its way.

'I know that one,' she gasped, frozen to the

spot in shock. 'That's a stegosaurus!'

'So it is,' said the Doctor staring at the heavily-

built beast thundering towards them. 'And so's that

one, and that one, and that one...'

More of the dinosaurs were emerging from the

tree line after the bull stegosaur that was leading

the charge. And they kept on coming.

'It's a whole herd!' Rory exclaimed.

Panicking sailors sprinted past them, back the

way they had come across the clearing.

'Yes, it would rather appear that way,' the

Doctor said, 'and they're coming this way. So, if

I were you, I'd start running. Come on, Doctor's

orders!'

'What is it with you and running?' Amy

muttered, nonetheless doing as the Doctor

told her.

'Occupational hazard,' he said, beginning to

pick up the pace.

'I've been wondering, Doctor,' Rory gasped as

they ran, 'have you ever thought about running the

London Marathon?'

'Oh no,' the Doctor called back, sonic in one

hand, his jacket in the other. 'Imagine it. Running

for three or four hours? In one go? I'd get bored

far too quickly.'

'Stop talking, boys, and run!' Amy shouted.

She glanced back over her shoulder. 'They're

getting closer!'

'These boots really weren't made for running,'

she added to herself. 'I dressed for the Renaissance,

not for running through the jungle being chased

by dinosaurs!'

'That tree!' the Doctor said, pointing to

the low-hanging branches of another cypress.

'Get climbing!'

Amy and Rory didn't need to be told twice. Amy

reached the tree first. The rest of the expedition

continued back down the track they had cut

through the forest, heading for what little cover

the undergrowth there might provide.

Grabbing a branch, Amy pulled herself up.

Desperation lent her the strength she needed.

Kicking at the trunk to help get a purchase,

she made it to the relative safety of the higher

branches. From her perch she lent down to help

her husband, the Doctor forming a stirrup with

his hands for Rory to step into.

With the two of them no longer in danger of

being trampled by the charging stegosaurs, Amy

and Rory both stretched a hand down to help

the Doctor.

'Here, take this,' the Time Lord said, tossing

Amy his precious sonic screwdriver so that he

might get a better grip on the tree himself.

Amy snatched it from the air as it tumbled end

over end towards her. As she did, she caught sight

of the charging dinosaurs again.

'Doctor, hurry!' she screamed as he tried to

climb up after them. The stegosaurs were bearing

down on him like a fleet of bulldozers.

He was a tangle of gangly limbs. He reached

for Rory's outstretched hand only to lose his grip

on the mossy branch he was already clinging onto.

As the bellowing bull at the head of the herd

thundered past beneath them its heaving flanks

scraped against the tree. The cypress shook so hard

Amy feared the dinosaur might bring it crashing

down altogether.

With a startled cry the Doctor fell.

His cry of surprise was cut off abruptly as he

landed on top of the beast, caught between the

triangular fin-like plates on its back. He gave a

breathless, 'Oomph!'

Straddling the animal's neck, there was nothing

he could do as it thundered on through the forest.

The rest of the herd following the bull, the ground

trembled at their passing as if in the grip of

an earthquake.

As Amy and Rory watched, helpless on their

perch among the crooked branches, the stegosaurs

ploughed back into the dense undergrowth on the

other side of the clearing.

The last they heard of the Doctor, was a

delighted cry of 'Geronimo!' as the stegosaur

carried him away into the cloying green gloom of

the forest.

'Doctor!' Amy screamed after the departing

dinosaurs, but it was no good — he was already

gone. Unable to stop herself she began to cry.

Rory caught her up in his arms, holding her

close, the two of them still lodged in the crook of

the tree. 'Don't worry,' he said, 'we'll find him. But

first we're going to need to get out of this tree.'

Amy wiped her eyes clear of tears and then

the two of them clambered down from the

tree. Sir Solomon Proudfoot's party was already

reassembling in the middle of the clearing.

The explorer was walking across the glade

towards them through the swishing ferns. 'Are you

alright?' he asked Amy. She couldn't help but notice

that he was checking the load of his unholstered

pistol as he did so.

'We have to go after those things,' she stated.

'We're fine, thank you,' Rory said.

'Yes, we're fine, but the Doctor won't be if we

don't go after those dinos now!'

'We're not going anywhere,' the explorer said,

giving her a flint-hard stare. 'Not until we've got

everyone back together.'

'And then we go after the Doctor,' Amy

persisted.

'No. Then we resume our mission and head

for our original objective,' Proudfoot said coldly.

'We'll just have to do our best without him.'

Amy stared at him aghast. 'And what's that

supposed to mean? You'd rather head off on

some wild goose chase than help another' — she

hesitated, before saying - 'human being?'

'It is not some wild goose chase,' Proudfoot

snarled.

'But the Doctor is in danger. We have to

help him!'

The explorer's dead-eyed stare continued to

bore into her like a laser. The Doctor could be

useful to us, I'll grant you that, but his well-being

is not my concern.'

'I don't believe I'm hearing this!' Amy said.

'We stay together and we stay on course for our

original objective,' Proudfoot said. The rest of the

Venture's crew had seemingly made it back to the

glade all in one piece.

Rory looked from his wife to the explorer and

back again. Am I the only one wondering why

there are even dinosaurs here, in this jungle, in the

first place?' he asked, the disbelief clear in his face.

'Well the Doctor's fate is our concern,' Amy

said, 'so we're going after him.'

She turned and strode off after the stegosaurs,

following the trail the gigantic animals had left

behind them. A ten-metre wide passage of flattened

ferns and cycads, crushed during the stegosaurs'

stampede, stretched across the clearing.

'Are we?' Rory asked, shooting anxious glances

at the trees surrounding the valley basin.

'Yes we are!' his wife retorted, turning

on her heel and grabbing his hand. She glared at

Sir Solomon Proudfoot, her eyes flashing with

green fire.

'Yes, of course we are!' Rory echoed.

'I said, everyone stays together.' Proudfoot's

voice was quietly sinister.

Slamming his pistol shut he pointed it straight

at Amy's face, his finger tightening on the trigger.

Amy swallowed hard as she heard the click of

the weapon being primed.

And then suddenly there was Rory, standing

between Proudfoot's gun and his wife. He met the

explorer's flinty stare with a furious gaze of silent

anger all of his own.

Proudfoot stayed exactly where he was. His

gun didn't waver.

Rory slowly turned to face his wife. Amy looked

back at him, the fury in her own eyes fading to be

replaced by a look of joy. You know what they saw

about discretion being the better part of valour.'

Amy said nothing.

'Well I think now would be the perfect time to

put it into practice.'

Amy held her indignant pose a moment longer

and then her shoulders sagged. All right,' she

said, begrudgingly. 'For now,' she added, throwing

Proudfoot another venomous glare.

'That's my girl.'

Rory turned back to address the gun-toting

explorer. 'We'll go with you,' he said in a quiet

voice that had never sounded more threatening,

'for now. But if you ever point your gun at my

wife again —'

Rory's pronouncement died in his throat as a

blood-curdling, reptilian roar echoed across the

glade. A split second later a tremor passed through

the ground at their feet.

As one, Proudfoot and the rest of the expedition

party turned to face the tree line, sweeping the

emerald shadows lurking between the trees with

their guns.

'The stegosaurs!' Amy gasped. 'They're

coming back!'

'No, I don't think so,' Rory said keeping his

voice low. 'I think it's something else.'

The thick vegetation was forced apart a second

time as something much worse than a herd of

stegosaurs burst from the forest into the glade.

All muscle and teeth and furious carnivorous

hunger, the terrible lizard hesitated. Its huge head

swung from side to side, nostrils flaring as it sniffed

the air.

The monster strode into the glade on two

powerful legs. Its armoured hide was mottled

orange and brown, banded with tiger-like stripes

of near black across its back. It rippled with the

movement of great slabs of muscle underneath.

A smaller pair of clawed forelimbs flexed in

anticipation of the kill it was about to make.

The monster's blunt head was little more than

a massive pair of jaws filled with teeth the size of

daggers. It continued to sway from side to side

as the creature tasted the air. Tiny eyes of yellow

hatred struggled to focus on the curious things

now fleeing in panic before its advance. The

counter-balance of its massive tail slashed at the

foliage behind it in irritation.

It might have lost the herd of herbivores that

had led it to this place, but here were some other

tasty treats that would help keep its hunger at bay

until it caught up with the grazers again.

'Well now we know what those stegosaurs were

running from,' Rory said, staring in horror at the

mighty beast looming over them.

Primeval savagery and knots of corded muscle

the size of ship's cables, stalked towards the

panicking crew of the Venture as they turned and

fled once more. It held its head low, its mouth

open, the thick black barb of muscle that was its

tongue tasting their fear.

And then it charged.

The huge creature darted and weaved across

the clearing, displaying greater agility than

Amy would have believed possible of something

so large.

She had faced down Weeping Angels, the Atraxi

and even Daleks, but a fully grown extra from

the movie set of King Kong? That was a new one

on her.

The creature opened its jaws wider still and gave

another shrieking cry that echoed across the glade.

Amy fancied she could feel its stinking breath —

reeking of rotting meat — rippling through her hair.

'A T-Rex,' she said in a breathless whisper.

'Yes, I can see that,' Rory said, adrenalin

rushing through his body, 'but if I might make a

suggestion, let's - RUN!'

Not once taking his eyes from the mass of

muscle and primeval savagery, Sir Solomon

Proudfoot slowly turned his gun away from Rory

and Amy, training it instead on the approaching

tyrannosaur.

'You can't be serious!' Rory gasped in utter

disbelief. 'That thing must have a hide as thick as

a rhinoceros. You think a few feeble bullets are

going to stop it?'

But Proudfoot kept the gun trained on the

beast, as if sizing up his target. The dinosaur took

another lumbering step closer, sending more of

the Venture's crew scattering before it.

The T-Rex suddenly lunged, head low, and

caught one of the desperate men in its cutlass

teeth. It was Mr Hayes the bosun.

Throwing back its head, the gigantic predator

tossed the yelling sailor into the air before catching

him again in its gaping jaws.

Amy turned away before she saw anymore

but she still heard the wet crunch of bone as the

bosun's screams suddenly ceased.

'Don't be a fool!' Rory said, tugging at the

explorer's arm and spoiling his aim. 'You wouldn't

have a hope. Save yourself, while you still can!'

'Behold now Behemoth!' Ishmael shouted as

he turned and ran.

For a moment it looked like Proudfoot might

try to stare down the dinosaur. Then he clearly

thought better of it. Deftly holstering his pistol,

he turned and joined the others in fleeing for

their lives.

Amy's lungs burned with every gasping breath

she took. Her heart was pounding so hard she

felt as though it might punch through her ribs at

any second. She could feel the ground shuddering

with every crashing step the dinosaur took. The

ferocious carnivore was probably closing on them

with every powerful stride.

She could hear the desperate cries and panicked

screams of those sailors who were not quick

enough to escape. The terrible lizard picked them

off, one after another, and Amy heard every chomp

as limbs were bitten through.

For around two million years, Tyrannosaurus

Rex had been the top predator of the Cretaceous

period. A few terrified human beings certainly

weren't going to cause this particular specimen

any trouble.

Amy wished she could block her ears to save

her from the horrible sounds. However, they did

encourage her to re-double her efforts as she

sprinted across the glade and into the smothering

undergrowth beyond the tree- line. Ferns whipped

wetly at her legs as she ran back into the jade

twilight of the forest.

Perhaps there, in the unnatural green dusk,

the T-Rex would lose sight of them. She was sure

she had read somewhere once that tyrannosaurs —

despite being six tonnes of lethally-evolved killing

machine — had notoriously poor eyesight.

As Kryptonite was to Superman, so she

hoped short-sightedness was to the T-Rex. There

certainly wasn't anyone better placed to put the

theory to the test right now than her. What did

some palaeontologist studying a fossilized skeleton

in the Badlands of Arizona know compared to

Amy Pond from Leadworth, who was even now

running from a real live T-Rex deep in the Florida

Everglades?

A part of her felt almost privileged to be in

such a position. In fact, she was sure that some

twenty-first century dino-boffins would have

died to experience first-hand what it was like

to be chased by a hungry tyrannosaur. But then

they probably would have died too, taking their

knowledge of what it was like to be swallowed by

a T-Rex to their graves.

She didn't know where she and the others were

running to. She only cared that they were running

away from the Tyrannosaur, and as far away as

possible at that. She didn't dare stop in case she

ended up as dinner for the dinosaur.

She could hear Rory panting behind her.

Proudfoot and Ishmael sprinted after him, their

flight accompanied by the snap of plant stems and

thwack of waxy leaves as they ploughed through

the vegetation. The explorer's machete was wholly

forgotten now.

The trailing twigs of tree branches and knotty

stems whipped at her face and hair. She caught her

breath as a thorn, as sharp as a velociraptor's claw,

caught her across the right cheek.

She automatically put a hand to the spot. Her

fingertips came back red with blood.

Putting up her hands to protect her face she

kept running, not slowing her pace once.

She had been dimly aware of the fact that the

ground had been rising for some time but suddenly

she found herself sprinting up a slope. Her leg

muscles burned with the effort, as did the breath

in her throat. But she couldn't have stopped even

if she'd wanted to — which she didn't.

Just as she was wondering whether they had

managed to escape the ravenous beast, Amy heard

the thud of falling trees and the splintering of

sappy stems coming from behind her. Something

very big and very powerful was crashing through

the trees after them.

The blood-curdling reptilian roar cut through

the emerald depths of the forest once more.

The T-Rex was still on their tail. It might be

true that the creature had poor eyesight, but Amy

had never read anything about how good this

particular carnivore's hearing was, or its sense

of smell.

Her thighs feeling like they were on fire,

Amy pounded up the slope. She was following a

naturally worn animal track that climbed higher

between the palms and knotty strangler figs. Over

the saurian bellow of the beast pursuing them and

the pounding of her own blood in her ears, she

could hear another rising roar. It was soon louder

than the rest put together.

She suddenly broke through the undergrowth

to be greeted by a wide expanse of azure sky. She

winced as the late afternoon sunlight hit her. She

could see nothing but blue skies from one horizon

to the other. Then she looked down.

There before her was an abrupt hundred-metre

drop off a sheer cliff.

Amy skidded to a halt, her survival instinct

kicking in immediately. She put her arms out to

either side to stop herself. It was also a warning to

those behind her. A shower of small stones and

dry earth went skittering over the edge of the cliff

and into the raging void beyond.

A moment later she was joined by her husband.

A moment after that the explorer and the wild old

man burst from the foliage behind them. They

too skidded to a halt before they plunged over the

edge and into oblivion.

The roar was a thunderous bellow now. To their

right, a crashing torrent of white water poured

from the forest to plunge over the waterfall and

into the deeply shadowed gorge below. Rainbows

danced in the sunlight amidst the crashing spray

thrown up by the waterfall, only to fall again like

heavy rain.

'Great!' Rory gasped. 'Now what?'

The screeching cry of the T-Rex echoed from

the forest behind them. It sounded closer than

ever. It could only be a matter of moments before

the monster joined them at the cliff's edge.

'Now?' Amy said, grabbing hold of her

husband's hand tightly. 'Now we jump!'

There wasn't time to think. There was only time

to act, otherwise they would never do it. Two

long strides took them to the edge of the precipice

and then they were treading thin air.

'Geronimo!' Amy shouted as they cleared the

cliff.

They dropped like stones, hand in hand, their

other hands flapping uselessly at the air, as if that

might actually somehow slow their fall. They kept

their bodies straight and their feet pointed towards

the churning waters of the plunge pool that lay at

the bottom of the fern-clad gully.

They hit the water mere seconds later. They

disappeared beneath the surface as a billion silver

bubbles broke for the surface around them. And

then, with strong kicks, they returned to the surface.

Their heads breaking the water, they gasped for

breath between spluttering bursts of grateful

laughter as Proudfoot and a wailing Ishmael Cain

joined them in the river.

Amy's cut stung, but otherwise she was unhurt,

despite their dramatic plunge from the top of the

waterfall.

A shower of earth and stones splashed into the

water around them.

Treading water, Amy pushed her wet hair out

of her eyes. Craning her head, she sought the top

of the cliff, her eyes fixing on the place they had

jumped from only moments before. And there, its

massive claws crushing the rock at the edge of the

precipice, was their pursuer.

The tyrannosaur was sweeping its head from

side to side, snorting loudly as it sniffed the air,

searching for their scent.

It was a truly awesome and yet terrifying beast,

Amy thought as she let the current carry her away

downstream.

The T-Rex stopped and put its head on one

side. Amy was sure that its beady reptilian eye

caught sight of the four of them. The super-

predator opened its terrible, blood-soaked jaws

and bellowed its primeval fury to the skies. But

its own primitive instinct for survival prevented it

from following them over the edge.

'That was just a little too close for comfort,'

Rory said, as he wiped a hand over his face.

'I know what you mean,' Amy agreed, smiling

with relief.

'What happened to your cheek?' Rory asked.

'Oh, it's nothing,' Amy said, gently probing the

cut again with her fingertips. 'I'll be all right.'

The explorer and Ishmael were spluttering

and gasping for breath a few metres behind them.

Incredibly, the old man was still holding onto his

mop, as if for protection. The current was dragging

them all towards the middle of the river, where the

flow was fastest.

'I just had a thought,' Rory said.

'And what's that?' Amy asked suspiciously.

'If there are stegosaurs and T-Rexes running

around the Everglades, I hate to think what might

be in here with us!'

Rory and Amy did their best to hang onto each

other as they were carried downstream. The

river narrowed as it passed from the plunge pool

into the gorge beyond, the force of the water

moving rapidly faster and faster. If they had been

intending to swim to the river bank and climb out,

that moment had already passed. They didn't have

a hope of making it to the shore now, not against

the full force of the river. The best they could do

was to try to keep to the middle of the channel,

where the river was deepest, and keep an eye out

for submerged boulders.

The explorer and the crazed out man, soaked

to the skin like Amy and Rory, bobbed along in the

current behind them. Unsurprisingly, somewhere

along the way Ishmael Cain had become parted

from his pith helmet. The roar of the waterfall

gradually faded into the distance behind them.

But the primordial roars of rage of the T-Rex

continued to echo from the grim walls of the

gorge a while longer.

The four of them were carried further and

further downstream, having no real idea where

they were going. Amy wondered whether they

were travelling along on a higher stretch of the

same river the expedition had followed into the

Everglades. If so it would eventually return them

to the spot where they had disembarked from the

lifeboats to continue their search for the Fountain

of Youth on foot. But before that they would

have to negotiate the rapids that had prevented

the boats from heading further upstream in the

first place.

Amy's thoughts were sharply brought back to

the here and now as the fast-flowing river carried

them around a sharp bend.

The river vanished abruptly over the edge of

another waterfall, not ten metres further on. There

was nothing they could do now to escape it either.

'Hold on tight,' she told Rory, holding him

close.

They both felt the pull of the current suddenly

become even stronger. Then they were tipping

over the edge, dropping through the crashing

torrent, down into another plunge pool, before

being swept away again.

Spluttering and gasping for air, Amy and Rory

continued to cling onto one another. Proudfoot

and Ishmael followed them over the smaller

cascade, Ishmael wailing in terror like a banshee.

The river grew wider, the limestone spur it

cut through dropping away to both left and right.

The dense forest gradually became a thin line in

the distance. Soon it was nothing more than a

greeny-brown smudge on the horizon as the river

became wider still. Eventually it collected in a vast

depression in the landscape where it formed a

shallow lake.

The power of the current lessened at last,

allowing Amy and Rory to swim to the edge. They

pulled themselves out onto the swampy foreshore

among clumps of bulrushes and water reeds.

Proudfoot followed their lead, as did Ishmael,

mop still in hand. They joined them as the couple

sat themselves down on the trunk of a fallen tree

to catch their breath. Rory was doing his best to

wring out his socks, while Amy was trying to comb

out her long auburn locks using only her fingers.

'Do you think we'll be safe here?' the explorer

asked. He had taken out his pistol, apparently

to check that it was still working after its dip in

the river.

'That all depends on whether you're planning

on pointing your gun at anyone else,' Amy retorted.

Proudfoot glared at her but said nothing.

He hadn't even had the good grace to apologise to

her yet.

'Surely it won't work after being submerged in

river water all that time,' Rory pointed out.

'It'll work,' Proudfoot said.

'Why, is it waterproof or something?'

'Believe me,' the explorer said darkly, 'it'll work.'

Having finished inspecting his gun Proudfoot

holstered the weapon once more.

'A-ha!' Ishmael suddenly shouted.

'What? What is it?' Amy demanded. The old

man was running back out into the shallows of

the lake.

'My pith helmet!' he shouted back joyfully.

The beige helmet was drifting through the water

towards the shore. Ishmael swept it up out of the

shallows and without even bothering to empty it

of river water first, plonked it straight back on his

head. 'My helmet!'

'Right,' Proudfoot announced, regaining

everyone's attention in an instant. He looked from

the burning white disc of the sun in the clear blue

sky above to the expanse of water and their place

within the unspoiled, primeval landscape. Finally

his gaze alighted on Ishmael. 'Which way now?'

'We need to be heading that way.' The old man

pointed further along the shore of the shallow

lake.

'Oh, really?' Amy said.

The explorer glowered at her again.

'Oh yes,' Ishmael Cain said urgently. 'Cos that

way lies the source.'

'The source of what?' Rory asked. 'Do you

mean the fabled Fountain of Youth?'

'The source of that, sah.'

Ishmael was pointing across the lake. The rest

of them turned to see what it was he was pointing at.

Rory's mouth dropped open in shock. 'What

happened to the sky?'

Amy opened her mouth to speak but no words

came. She didn't know what to say. There was

nothing to say.

The sky had broken.

Before they had plunged off the top of the

waterfall into the river the sky had been the

bluest blue Amy had ever seen. Now it was the

colour of a ripe bruise.

And then there was the sun. It was a furious red

ball, close to the horizon in front of them. But the

sun had been behind them only a moment before.

Amy turned to check.

Behind her, beyond the higher land above the

limestone gorge, she could see the yellow-white

disc low in the sky to the west.

She turned back again. And there was the sun,

the colour of molten magma, set within a sky the

colour of squid ink.

As she stared at it in disbelief the view seemed

to flicker and change. The sky went from purple

to blue to orange, back to purple, and then

almost black.

Amy finally managed to tear her eyes away

from the flickering sky and fixed her husband

with a bewildered, hazel-green stare. 'The forest!'

she said, her eyes focusing on something over

his shoulder.

They all looked again, Rory turning round to

see for himself what it was his wife had seen.

There on the horizon, beneath the flickering

sky, the landscape was changing too. One moment

it was the steaming Everglade forest they had just

hacked their way through. Then, a moment later,

it looked like an altogether different, darker jungle.

Amy slowly became aware of the fact that

the hooting cries of birds and chirrup of insects

were being swallowed by the echoing roars and

bellows of another age entirely. She was listening

to sounds that hadn't been heard in that region for

millions of years.

She gave a cry of startled surprise. Someone

was standing at her shoulder.

It was Ishmael Cain.

'Here be dragons,' he whispered, not once

taking his eyes from the warping jungle.

'We're close,' Sir Solomon Proudfoot said,

without offering anything else by way of

explanation. Shouldering his pack, he set off

through the quagmire of the lake shore, heading

for the distorting primeval forest that lay under the

ever-shifting sky.

'What about your friends?' Amy called

after him.

'What about them?' Proudfoot growled, not

breaking his stride.

'Aren't you going to wait for them?'

'And why would I want to do that?'

Ishmael remained where he was. He looked

from Rory and Amy to the retreating Proudfoot

and then back again.

'So what do we do now?' Rory said. It was

suddenly very clear that the only person who even

came close to having the means to defend them

from whatever the Cretaceous might spring on

them next was walking away towards the heart of

the temporal disturbance.

There wasn't any sign that any of the other

sailors had survived their encounter with the

Tyrannosaur. Even if they had escaped its fury,

there was no guarantee they were anywhere near

the lost lake.

'We follow Dr Livingstone over there,' Amy

said in a disgruntled tone, nodding towards the

departing Proudfoot.

'Really?' Rory said, secretly relieved. 'I mean

good. Good thinking.'

'The Doctor and this guy were both headed in

the same direction,' Amy pointed out, 'remember?

If the Doctor's managed to get away from those

stegosaurs I bet he'll be doing his best to get to the

same place.'

'Again, another good point.' Shooting the

colour-changing sky to the east another wary look

Rory said, 'Right you are then. Time's a-wasting, so

let's get going'

Amy and Rory set off after the determined

Victorian adventurer, with Ishmael trotting after

them.

The mud sucked at their feet but it was easier

going this way than it was struggling through the

stifling depths of the forest.

A dragonfly as big as a parrot hummed past

them, dancing over the pools of still water at the

lake's edge, its iridescent eyes and stained glass

wings glittering like jewels in the inconstant light.

'What did I say?' Ishmael announced

triumphantly. 'Here be dragons!'

They followed the lake shore as it curved round

past a stand of looming palms. It seemed to Amy

as if the sky was changing colour faster than ever.

The sometimes-forest sometimes-jungle continued

to warp so she couldn't be certain where, or even

when, any of them were now.

And then suddenly they all stumbled to a halt,

their feet sloshing in the mud of the lake's edge.

'Oh my!' Rory gasped.

'We've found it!' the explorer declared.

'The Fountain of Youth!' Ishmael shouted,

taking his pith helmet off and throwing it into the

air in delight.

There, half-sunk in the shallows of the lake,

was the object of Sir Solomon Proudfoot's quest.

At first glance it looked like some strange and

primitive sculpture, left behind by a forgotten

civilisation and now smothered with vines. It was

shaped like a huge cube of stone, each side roughly

four metres in length. Some of the vines had been

cleared away and Amy could see that what she had

first taken to be time-worn granite actually looked

more like some kind of corroded metal.

Sitting on top of the curious artefact, looking

right as rain and happy as a sand boy, was a

bedraggled geography teacher with a mop of

slicked back dark hair.

'Doctor?' said Amy.

'Evening all,' the Doctor replied. 'What kept

you?'

'What kept us?' Amy exclaimed. 'How about six

tonnes of T-Rex?'

She was delighted to see the Doctor but at the

same time felt furious for all the worry he had put

her through.

'But you're all right now, I see,' the Doctor

flashed her a cheerful grin. 'Mr Pond,' he added,

saluting the sodden Rory.

Apparently unconcerned by what the Doctor

was doing, Sir Solomon Proudfoot approached

the cube, Ishmael following behind uncertainly.

A burst of raucous laughter suddenly escaped

the Doctor's mouth.

'What's so funny?' Amy demanded, flicking a

stray strand of wet red hair out of her face.

'It's just that the name Mr and Mrs Pond has

never suited you more!'

Rory finished squeezing the water out of the

corner of his winter vest and fixed the Doctor

with a hard stare.

'Okay. Perhaps that's not as funny as I first

thought,' the Time Lord added under his breath.

'Anyway. Pond,' he said, holding out a hand.

'Screwdriver!'

Amy gasped. In all the excitement of their flight

from the T-Rex and their dunking in the river, it

had slipped her mind that the Doctor had given

her the precious device before being carried off

on the back of a stegosaur. For a second she felt

a knot of cold panic grip her stomach. What had

she done with it? And, even if she still had it, had

the screwdriver survived their hectic journey over

the waterfall and into the river.

'You have still got it, haven't you?'

Had she? Amy desperately tried to recall what

she had done with the thing since snatching it out

of the air when the Doctor had thrown it to her.

When she had been in the tree she had put it

the sonic in her jacket pocket. But the jacket had

ended up tied around her waist. And then she

remembered, and her panicked pulse relaxed again.

'Got it right here,' she said with false bravado,

reaching into the pocket of her shorts. She took

out the bronze and silver pen-like instrument with

a flourish. 'Ta da!'

She casually tossed it up to where the Doctor

sat, balanced on top of the curious corroded

metal cube.

The Doctor deftly snatched it out of the air.

The tip of the device sprang open at the flick of

a switch, sending a spray of water droplets flying

into the Doctor's face, making him blink.

'What have you been doing with it?' he asked,

sounding nonplussed. Ticking locks underwater?'

'Look here, mister,' Amy replied. 'You're lucky

you've got it back at all!'

The Doctor settled for a 'Harrumph!' as he

continued to look over his sonic screwdriver,

checking it for water damage. He pressed a button

and after an uncertain start, a familiar whirring

hum rose from the device. 'Hmm... Well it seems

okay, I suppose,' the Doctor admitted.

Without saying another word the Time Lord

directed the device at the metal cube and the sonic

began to hum repeatedly.

Proudfoot was running his hands over its

corroded surface whilst examining the obscured

markings that covered it. 'It's intact,' he breathed

with obvious relief.

With both the explorer and the Doctor deeply

absorbed in what they were doing, Rory and Amy

were left standing there, effectively twiddling

their thumbs. They were soaking wet and fed up.

Their clothes refused to dry out in the humid air,

and they had nothing better to do than to gaze in

wonder and confusion at the flickering sky above

and the fluctuating forest beyond.

Amy started, Ishmael Cain suddenly at her

side again.

'Behold! He comes with clouds,' the mad old

man muttered. On the far horizon vast black storm

clouds were massing. As big as Himalayan crags

and lit by crackling bursts of distant lightning they

made Amy suddenly feel very small.

Thunder rumbled across the broken sky,

with the sound of boulders tumbling down a

mountain side.

'And I heard a voice from heaven,' Ishmael

went on, 'as the voice of many waters, and as the

voice of a great thunder.'

'So,' Amy said, moving away from the babbling

old man, 'aren't you going to tell us how you got

here first — wherever 'here' is. And aren't you going

to tell us what you're up to, seeing as you clearly

already know what's going on?'

'Oh, yes, okay,' the Doctor blustered. 'Well,

where to start?'

'How about at the beginning?' Rory suggested.

'Oh no, that would take far too long,' the Doctor

said. 'You do know I'm over nine hundred years

old, don't you? I've been doing this' - he waved at

the world around him with his sonic screwdriver,

as if casually taking in the whole of creation in

doing so — 'for centuries!'

'Cut to the chase, Doctor. Obviously he means

take it from the point where you rode off into

the sunset on the back of a creature that became

extinct millions of years ago,' Amy chided.

'Oh, that. Yes, that was a little bit spaghetti

western,' the Time Lord said, a boyish grin on

his face. 'Well, it just so happens that it was the

stegosaurs that brought me here. The poor beasts

were obviously trying to return home.'

'Which is where, exactly?' Rory asked. 'Not

here, surely?'

The Doctor smiled. 'Well yes, as it happens.'

'So there are dinosaurs still living in the Florida

Everglades at the end of the nineteenth

century?' Rory exclaimed. 'Crikey! Who would've

thought it?

'No, not quite.'

'But you just said —'

'I said 'here', Rory,' the Doctor interrupted.

'Not 'now'.'

Rory stared at the Doctor. 'What?'

'As your good lady wife pointed out, the

stegosaurs along with the rest of their kind became

extinct millions of years ago. I should know; I was

there — sort of. I mean, I had a hand in it, although

I should also point out that it wasn't my fault. Not

entirely, anyway. Of course that hasn't stopped

me from running into them in London during

the Seventies and in caves under Wenley Moor in

Derbyshire. But that's beside the point.'

'So what are you trying to say, Doctor?' Amy

asked, trying to get him back on track.

'Okay, so once again for the hard of

understanding, the stegosaurs were trying to

return home, but their home is in the past. It was

the fracture in time, located over this lake, that

allowed them through from the Late Jurassic to

the present. That is to say, the Florida Everglades

towards the end of the nineteenth century.'

'The time fracture?' Rory said, mystified.

'Yes, well a time fracture,' the Doctor said. 'I

told you the TARDIS detected a number of them

on arriving here. I mean there's one that connects

with the Cretaceous for a start. That's where the

T-Rex really belongs and not in the Jurassic —

whatever certain movie-makers would have you

believe. But all of the time fractures are ultimately

centred upon this lake - more precisely, this metal

box. It's like the epicentre of an earthquake but

with tremors and aftershocks rippling out in all

directions. And the cracks don't all connect to the

same place in time.'

Rory turned from the Doctor, who was busy

with his sonic screwdriver again, to his wife. His

eyes widened in surprise.

'Amy, your face,' he suddenly gasped.

'What? What is it?' Amy asked, putting a hand

to her face. She knew she wasn't exactly looking

her best. How could she, after being chased by

dinosaurs and dunked in a river, and not to mention

being thrown over a waterfall? But the concern in

her husband's voice unsettled her.

'The cut on your cheek,' Rory spluttered.

'What? What about it?'

'It's... It's healing.'

'Well I should hope so too,' Amy said. 'It was

stinging like nettle rash after we ended up in the

river.'

'But it's not stinging now?' the Doctor asked,

scrutinizing her face as well now.

As it turned out, Amy realised, it wasn't.

'No,' she said. She tentatively ran her fingertips

over her cheek, expecting the skin there to feel

tender, only she couldn't feel anything. There was

no scab; not even a raised welt. She probed harder,

pushing at the firm flesh she found there. That

didn't hurt either. 'What's going on?'

'The cut,' Rory said. 'It's gone. There's not a

mark on you. It's like your cheek was never even

cut in the first place!'

'Doctor?' Amy gave the Time Lord an anxious

look. 'What's going on?'

'Oh, it's nothing to worry about,' the Doctor

replied with a forced air of calm. 'Cellular

regeneration is one of the less harmful side effects

of the temporal energy leaking from the damaged

time drive.'

When this comment clearly did nothing to

relieve the anxious expressions on his friends'

faces, the Doctor tried to clarify things for them.

'The time field the damaged drive's putting

out is causing your personal physical timelines

to run backwards, repairing any recent damage

and effectively restoring your youth. Although

I wouldn't let your wife get too much closer, Mr

Pond, otherwise you're going to find yourself

married to the seven year-old Amelia Pond rather

than the lovely twenty-something Amy.'

'And that's one of the less harmful side effects?'

Rory said uncertainly.

'So how come it's not effecting you?' Amy

asked, even as her husband dragged her away from

the now humming metal cube.

'It is,' the Doctor confessed. 'But I've got a lot

more youth to catch up on than you two.'

'So this is the source of the legend,' Amy said,

realisation dawning on her now. 'This box is the

Fountain of Youth.'

'In a manner of speaking, I suppose,' the

Doctor agreed. 'The device must have lain here,

at the heart of the Everglades, for hundreds of

years. People came here, drank the waters of the

lake because they were thirsty after all the effort

of getting here, came within range of the damaged

time drive, began to age in reverse, and had their

youth was restored. Only they put it down to an

effect of the waters, rather than the leaking time

drive and — Voila! — one instant legend.'

'Just add water,' Amy said with a laugh.

'Ah yes, very good, Pond. Very good,' the

Doctor said, grinning.

'So that's a time drive,' Rory said, pointing at

the cube. That rusted old thing?'

'The trans-temporal drive from a vessel capable

of time travel, to be precise.'

'Like the TARDIS you mean?' Amy said.

'Oh no, not like the TARDIS!' the Doctor

laughed. The old girl might be a museum piece,

but she's far more advanced than this primitive

piece of junk.'

Amy's face suddenly lit up as she made the

connection. 'But like whatever it was the TARDIS

collided with whilst travelling through the Vortex!'

'Yes,' the Doctor said, flashing her an impressed

smile. 'Just like that.'

The three companions were suddenly aware

of another pair of eyes on them. It was the

explorer, Sir Solomon Proudfoot. He was staring

at them intently.

'I suppose it had to come out sooner or

later,' the Doctor sighed theatrically giving the

gentleman explorer a cheery wave. 'Yes, we are

in fact travellers in time and space,' he confessed,

holding up his hands in mock surrender. 'Probably

should have mentioned it earlier. But never mind,

eh? A stitch in time and all that.'

'But Doctor, you just said that this thing has

probably been lying here, hidden at the heart of

the Everglades, for centuries,' Rory said, still trying

to get his head round everything the Doctor had

revealed in the last two minutes.

With one athletic spring, the Doctor jumped

down from the top of the cube, landing up to his

knees in muddy water.

'So I did, and so it has,' the Doctor said, 'judging

by the level of corrosion and plant growth that

was obscuring it when I first got here.'

'But the collision only happened this morning,'

Rory persisted. 'And it's,' - he looked at the sky in

confusion — 'dusk now? I think.'

'For us, it was only a matter of hours ago,' the

Doctor explained, 'but you have to remember that

travelling in time is never as simple as that. It comes

with its own unique complications. Weddings and

funerals are a nightmare for starters. Helps if you

remember to attend them in the right order, of course.'

Rory stared at the Doctor in bewilderment.

'Would you care to explain?' Amy asked,

backing up her husband.

'It's like this,' the Doctor began. 'We were

travelling backwards through time, heading for the

Renaissance, when we collided with a ship that was

travelling forwards through time. The force of the

collision was enough to throw us forwards as well

and almost cause the TARDIS to crash. Imagine if

the other ship was badly damaged also - it's trans-

temporal drive in particular - forcing the crew to

jettison the device.'

'Ah, flotsam and jetsam,' Ishmael said knowingly.

Amy and Rory stared at the Doctor blankly.

Proudfoot gave the Time Lord a suspicious look,

his eyes narrowed.

'Imagine. The time drive emerges from the

Vortex at this point in space several hundreds of

years ago. A short time later, deprived of its time

drive, the ship itself emerges from the Vortex and

crash-lands somewhere nearby but — and this is

the important bit — several hundred years later,

in terms of how much time had passed here on

Earth.'

'Then, last of all, the TARDIS lands on board

the Venture, even further forward in time,' Amy

said, understanding what the Doctor meant at last.

'And Bob - as they say - is your mother's

brother,' the Doctor said triumphantly. 'Or, in my

case, my grandmother's cousin seventeen times

removed.'

Amy and Rory continued to gawp at the

alien artefact. Ishmael was distractedly watching

the flickering sky. Sir Solomon Proudfoot was

watching the Doctor guardedly.

Amy became aware of a faint green light

coming from within the peculiar device, escaping

through the corroded time-worn cracks in its

strange metal surface. Whatever the Doctor had

been trying to do with his sonic screwdriver

appeared to have had an effect.

'How do you know all this?' the explorer

asked, his voice little more than a stupefied

whisper.

'You wouldn't believe the things I've seen,' the

Doctor said, a faraway look in his ancient eyes.

A thoughtful silence descended over those

gathered in front of the damaged time drive.

It was broken abruptly by an eerie screech. It

was a cry that echoed down through the aeons

to the present. It was a sound with which Amy

and Rory were already uncomfortably familiar.

'Oh no,' Amy breathed.

The Doctor perked up. The sound had caught

his attention.

'Ah, now I'm guessing that would be your

prehistoric pursuer,' the Time Lord said. A wary

expression passed across his face like ripples

across a lake.

Amy and Rory shot anxious glances all

about them. There was no obvious cover,

other than for the damaged drive. There were

no convenient escape routes nearby either, as

there had been the last time they had run into

the T-Rex.

'I'm going to eat you,' the Doctor muttered. All

of you.'

'I beg your pardon?' Amy exclaimed.

'I'm translating for you,' the Time Lord

said. 'The dialect's Late Cretaceous, the accent

is carnosaur . . . Too many teeth and a bucket-

load of bad attitude?' The Doctor grinned.

'Yup, definitely a tyrannosaurus.'

'You got all that from just one roar?' Rory asked,

secretly impressed.

'Well I did have a bit of help,' the Doctor

confessed, 'since I can see it standing right over

there.'

He pointed with his sonic screwdriver.

Amy and Rory snapped their heads round and

gave a sharp intake of breath.

Ishmael clenched his mop-rifle all the more

tightly.

It was little more than a sinister shadow at the

edge of the morphing forest but its silhouette

was unmistakeable. It loomed before the trees, its

head swaying from side to side. Amy knew it must

be sniffing the air. It was either still searching for

them, or it had picked up the scent of the stegosaur

herd again.

'Which way did you say your lift went?' Amy

asked the Doctor.

'What, the stegosaurs?'

The Time Lord pointed behind him, towards

the centre of the lake where the air shimmered as

if with a heat-haze. One minute Amy could see

clear blue skies above the lake. The next moment

the skies were dark and a smoking volcano could

be seen on the horizon.

'That way, back through the rift.'

Whether the T-Rex was following them or the

stegosaur herd, it effectively made no difference.

'It's going to come this way,' she said.

'How can you be so sure?' the Doctor challenged

her. 'It isn't going anywhere yet.'

The monster swung its head in their direction

and set off towards them at a lumbering trot.

'Oh,' he said.

'I hate it when you're right, Amy,' Rory sighed.

He turned to the Doctor. 'What do you reckon its

top speed is?' he asked.

'Whatever it is you've got in mind, forget it,'

the Doctor said. 'Forget it right now! Our best bet

it to stay exactly where we are. Nobody make any

sudden movements.'

Amy could feel the tremor of the terrible lizard's

thudding footfalls as they sent ripples skittering

away from the water's edge.

It was coming closer with every powerful stride.

It was no longer just a dark shape before the tree

line either. The tiger-stripe patterns covering its

bronzed hide were clearly visible now.

'But Doctor it's still coming this way. It's getting

closer!' Amy hissed.

'Yes, I know, thank you, Pond,' he hissed back.

His attention was focused on his screwdriver now

as he played with the sonic in his hands as if it was

a Rubik's Cube.

The pitch of the humming coming from the

time drive started to rise.

'So what are you going to do to stop it?' Rory

demanded.

'Why me? Why is it always up to me?'

'Because you like it that way, Doctor,' Amy

pointed out. 'So tell us - how are you going to get

us out of this mess?'

Amy could hear the dinosaur's panting breath

now as it quickened its pace. Either it could smell

their fear or it was able to see the prey that had

escaped it before quite clearly now.

'Well, Doctor?' Sir Solomon Proudfoot

demanded, pulling his pistol from its holster.

The Doctor shot him a pained expression.

'Why's it always up to me? It's not my fault there's

a fracture in time in the middle of the Everglades,'

he returned, before adding under his breath, 'which

makes a change.'

'Are you sure about that?' The explorer had

obviously heard him.

The Doctor shot him a suspicious look.

'Very well then, Doctor, leave it to me,'

Proudfoot said. He pointed his weapon at the

rapidly approaching prehistoric monster.

'No!' the Doctor shouted, his eyes widening in

horror as he laid eyes on the weapon. 'No guns.

Put that thing away this instant!'

The explorer half-lowered the pistol. 'I take it

this thing's a carnivore?' he said.

'Well yes, of course, I mean look at those teeth.

They wouldn't be much good for grinding plants

to a pulp now, would they? And then there's the

position of its eyes on its skull. Good binocular

vision. Just what a predator needs. But that's not

the point,' the Doctor protested. 'Besides, a hand

gun like that won't be any use against a T-Rex. A

bullet from that thing wouldn't even penetrate its

hide. You'd need something like an elephant gun

at least.'

The nauseous stench of half-rotted meat

washed over them as the Tyrannosaur exhaled a

great gust of stinking air.

'That's all I needed to know,' Proudfoot growled.

Taking aim again, his finger tightened on the

trigger, and he fired.

But there was no sudden, sharp bang. Instead

a beam of intense red laser light burst from the

muzzle of the pistol and streaked across the

clearing, burning through the fetid air. It struck the

T-Rex square in the middle of its skull.

A look of astonishment filled the tyrannosaur's

beady yellow eyes as the blast fried its brain. But it

took a moment longer for the creature's body to

realise what had happened.

The dinosaur took another three lumbering

strides towards them before its legs gave way

beneath it. It crashed to the ground, sliding through

the black mud of the lake shore towards them. It

finally came to rest with its huge head only a few

centimetres from the feet of an astonished Amy.

'Now that really was a little too close for

comfort!' Amy gasped. Her whole body was

shaking in shock.

The terrible lizard lay there, unmoving. Amy

stared at the monster and it stared back at her.

But there was no light in those eyes. The dinosaur

was dead.

The Doctor turned from the dead dinosaur to

the Victorian gentlemen explorer. He looked

at the man's seemingly ordinary, and yet clearly

extraordinary, pistol.

'Where did you get that gun?' he asked in an

appalled whisper.

'Doctor, can you repair the anomaly?' Proudfoot

asked, avoiding the question.

'You had no right,' he fumed, his quiet voice

full of menace. 'That was a magnificent beast,

more worthy of life than —'

'The anomaly, Doctor,' Sir Solomon interrupted

the Time Lord. 'Can you repair it?'

'You mean the time fracture that has been

created by the damaged time drive, which is

allowing dinosaurs to cross from the past into the

present?'

'Can you?'

The Doctor regarded the explorer with

narrowed eyes for a moment before giving his

reply 'Yes, I can.'

'Is nobody else here seeing the bigger picture?'

Rory piped up.

The others turned to look at him. With

everyone's attention on him he suddenly looked a

little nervous but was determined to say his piece.

'Okay, we've got dinosaurs roaming the Florida

Everglades, we've got a damaged time drive that's

leaking timey-wimey stuff, or something, giving

anyone who comes within range a free facelift,

but what about the spaceship full of aliens that

were forced to jettison the drive in the first place?

Won't they be around here somewhere too, looking

for it?' He glanced nervously at Proudfoot as he

said this.

'Rory, you're a genius!' the Doctor suddenly

exclaimed, grasping the young man by the arms

and planting a smacker of a kiss on his forehead.

Amy grinned at the two of them. 'Well you

didn't think I'd marry someone without at least

half a brain, did you Doctor?'

'So the question we should be asking is, where

is the other ship?' the Doctor went on, caught up

in the conundrum now.

'Shouldn't the question be, why has this man got

a laser gun?' Rory asked, still eyeing the explorer

anxiously.

'No, no,' the Doctor said, dismissing Rory's

concerns with a wave of his hand. 'I already know

the answer to that.'

'You do?'

'Yes. Now, the ship has got to be somewhere

close by. I mean it can't be that far away, either in

space or time. After all, this' - he ran a hand over

the corroded surface of the huge cube — 'is a rare

treasure.'

The Doctor suddenly stopped, his brows

knitting and his expression darkening. Turning

slowly from the cube, he fixed the explorer with a

penetrating stare.

'Isn't that right, Sir Solomon?'

Amy and Rory both turned and stared at the

explorer. Proudfoot stared back at them, his face

grim. With a resigned sigh he put a hand to the

copper-coloured bracelet clasped around his left

wrist and gave it a twist.

Amy gave a gasp while Rory muttered something

unrepeatable under his breath. Something was

wrong with Proudfoot's face.

As Amy watched, unable to tear her eyes away

from the man, she saw his features begin to warp

and change. At first the distortion appeared as

nothing more than a ripple across the skin of the

man's cheek, as if he had been caught in the blast

from a wind tunnel. But then the ripple spread

across his whole face, distorting even his nose and

forehead, that shouldn't have appeared as fluid as

they did.

And as Amy continued to stare in horror at

the explorer, the warping effect became more

pronounced, spreading out over his whole body.

Ishmael gave a squeak of fear.

As Proudfoot's features changed, so did his

height and build. He became taller and leaner.

His skin became stretched tight across his skull.

His clothes appeared to dissolve and evaporate

revealing the body beneath, with both ribs and

limb bones clearly defined.

Soon the Victorian gent resembled something

that was little more than a seven-foot tale human

skeleton covered with a thin layer of flesh, wearing

a few scraps of what appeared to be leather and

chainmail armour.

'Either he's an alien or he needs to see a doctor,'

Rory gasped. The Doctor turned, one eyebrow

arching. 'He's an alien, isn't he?'

'It certainly explains the laser pistol,' the

Doctor replied. 'The question is,' he said, turning

and looking up into the skeletal face of the

looming creature, 'what manner of extraterrestrial

are you?'

The creature looked down at the Time Lord

through large eyes that looked like orbs of

polished obsidian and blinked. Then it blinked

again, with a second pair of eyelids positioned at

right-angles to the first set.

Rory blinked back in startled response.

'From the look of you, I'm guessing Calibas,'

the Doctor said, 'or at least a closely related species

from within the vicinity of the Soronax Nebula.

But the Calibas are scavengers.'

'Scavengers?' Amy echoed. She was aware of

a ghastly whimpering sound coming from nearby.

It was Ishmael. His face had gone a deathly white

and Amy worried he might have a heart attack at

any moment.

'The race is only capable of interstellar travel

thanks to having nicked off with the warp engine

from a Utraxan mining asteroid that crashed on

their home-world, if I remember rightly,' the

Doctor went on. He turned back to the looming

alien. 'I'm guessing you 'borrowed' your perception

filter tech from the Saturnynians or someone.

You certainly shouldn't be in possession of a ship

capable of time travel. Unless...'

Ishmael Cain had begun to babble. Amy shot

him another anxious glance.

The old man looked terrified. He was backing

away from the thing that had, until recently, been

Sir Solomon Proudfoot, unable to tear his eyes off

the alien. And he was still holding his mop-rifle

protectively in front of him.

'Oh no, not them. Not them, not them, not

them,' he gabbled.

'It's alright,' Amy said, taking a step towards the

jabbering wretch.

'No, it's not!' he shrieked in return.

'Yes it is, the Doctor will sort it out,' - she turned

back to the Doctor, adding — 'won't you, Doctor?'

It wasn't so much a question as an instruction.

'So what are you?' the Doctor asked the skeletal

creature again, drawing himself up to his full height

and yet remaining a whole head shorter than the

gaunt alien.

It blinked twice again before answering. 'We are

the Calibas,' it said, in a voice that was underlined

by a dry rattle.

'I knew it,' the Doctor said, a look of triumph

on his face. Then his eyes narrowed. 'And we

already know why you're here.'

The alien blinked twice.

'You're here for this,' the Time Lord said,

tapping the time drive with his sonic screwdriver.

'We are only here because of you, Doctor,' the

creature hissed.

'Now you can't blame that collision on me,' the

Doctor snapped, suddenly defensive. 'That was

a one in a trillion chance. We just got unlucky,

that's all.'

'But you will help us,' the creature said.

The pistol gripped in its three-fingered hand

had transformed in appearance too. It was now

clearly a weapon of alien design, and it was being

pointed at the Doctor.

'Yes, because you need my help, don't you? You

didn't build this thing,' he said, tapping the time

drive with his sonic again, 'and so you don't know

how to fix it now that it's gone wrong. But I'm not

going to help you if you're going to start waving

that thing around.'

The Calibas double-blinked again, both its gaze

and its gun still focused on the Time Lord.

'Anyway, what do you think I've been doing all

along? And if you want me to keep on helping you

you're going to have to put that thing away.' The

Doctor stared pointedly at the alien weapon. 'I

said no guns, didn't I? They're always more trouble

than they're worth. Things always end badly when

guns are involved.'

For a moment the Calibas didn't move. Then,

slowly, it put its pistol away in the holster hanging

from the leather and chainmail skirt it wore.

'Thank you,' the Doctor said, and returned to

running his humming sonic over the corroded

cube. Deep inside the time drive, with every pass

of the sonic screwdriver another broken link in its

damaged circuitry was repaired.

The others waited in awkward silence as the

Doctor grappled with repairing the damaged

device. All except for Ishmael who was still

whimpering unhappily to himself.

The Doctor broke off from his work, fixing

the alien with a needling stare.

'You know what's really been niggling me?'

he said. 'The time drive, your presence here, the

dinosaurs... None of it explains this poor wretch's

involvement in your little expedition into the

Everglades.' The Time Lord nodded towards the

petrified Ishmael. 'I mean, I take it you're not the

only one of your kind stranded here?'

'You are quite correct, Doctor,' the alien

confirmed. 'There is the rest of my crew.'

The old man started at that.

'It's alright,' Amy said, putting a comforting

hand on his arm. 'He's not going to hurt you. No

one's going to hurt you. It's going to be okay.'

'But Ishmael's clearly not one of you, is he?' the

Doctor pressed, returning to work on the damaged

device. The green glow coming from within the

time drive was steadily increasing in intensity. 'So

what's his part in all this? Why's he here?'

The Doctor suddenly stood bolt upright and

slapped a hand to his forehead.

'Of course!' he exclaimed. 'How could I have

been so stupid? Head's too full of stuff! I'm getting

old and stupid!'

'What, Doctor?' Amy asked in nervous

excitement. 'What is it?'

'You needed a psychic template to model your

appearance on!' the Time Lord exclaimed, still

addressing the alien.

'Like Prisoner Zero,' Amy gasped.

'Like Prisoner Zero,' the Doctor agreed.

'For us to create a believable false image our

cloaking technology requires it,' the Calibas

explained.

'They came out of the storm!' Ishmael suddenly

announced, a distant look entering the old

man's eyes. 'On wings of fire and bringing death

in their wake.'

'But that's not the only reason you've kept him

around, is it?' the Doctor challenged.

'We found this one,' the alien said, indicating

the cowering Ishmael with a nod of its head,

'floating amidst the wreckage of his ship after our

own vessel crash-landed. After we had been forced

to jettison the damaged time drive.'

'We set out from England months ago,' the old

man went on, the same faraway look in his glassy

eyes, 'in search of the Fountain of Youth.'

'The humans' vessel had clearly been wrecked

during a storm,' the Calibas continued. 'He was

the only survivor. We realised we would need

to do something about our appearance to avoid

discovery whilst we searched for the damaged

drive. We scanned his mind and used what we

found there —'

'Combined with your own particular brand of

borrowed perception filter technology,' the Doctor

interrupted.

'— to blend in better with our new surroundings.'

'So what you're saying is that you're all

masquerading as dead men taken from the mind

of a demented soul.'

'You might have been better off basing your

look on One Million Years B.C., going with

loincloths or something in fur,' Amy said, resting

her weary legs by taking a seat on the muzzle of

the dead dinosaur lying at the edge of the lake.

'Poor guy,' Rory said quietly, so that only the

Doctor and his wife could hear. 'Must have driven

him mad.'

'We don't know that,' the Doctor said. 'I think he

might have been a bit that way inclined before the

Calibas ever turned up, probably as a consequence

of being a little bit psychic.'

'Can you be just a little bit psychic?' Rory asked.

'His latent psychic powers must have been given

a jump start by the opening of the time fracture,'

the Doctor added.

'Really?' Amy said. 'You think he's psychic?'

'How do you think he knew so much about us

and the TARDIS when we first turned up on board

the Venture?' the Doctor said. 'I've seen it happen

before plenty of times, such as back in Pompeii,

in the lead up to Volcano Day. Ishmael's dormant

abilities, combined with the fracture in time, made

him sensitive to the currents of the Vortex. The

side-effect of this was that he must have received

glimpses of the past and future; other places as

well as other times. It would have been a bit like

watching a damaged film clip and discover bits and

pieces about us without ever having met us before.

'Of course!' the Doctor suddenly announced,

spinning on his heel in the muddy water. 'That's it!'

Rory and Amy looked at each other, open

mouthed.

The Doctor turned back to face the Calibas.

'You were using poor old Ishmael here as a psychic

compass!'

'A what?' Rory asked, flabbergasted.

'His sensitivity to the time fluctuations from

the fractures allowed you to tell how close you

were to the drive.

'You mean like whether they were getting hotter

or colder?' Amy butted in.

'Precisely!'

The alien blinked twice.

'This one's sensitivity to the temporal

disruptions allowed us to locate the unit when our

other scanning instruments were unable to due to

those very same disruptions.'

Amy scowled at the Calibas. 'Isn't that what I

just said?'

Above them the sky continued to shift from

clear blue, to the colour of congealed blood, to

velvet black, and back again. All the while haunting

cries echoed across the lake from an era lost in the

mists of time.

'So where do we go from here?' Rory asked.

'Well if people would stop interrupting me,'

the Doctor said grumpily, 'I might actually be able

to finish fixing this thing.' He tapped the glowing

cube with his sonic screwdriver again. 'Then we

can think about sending the Calibas on their way

again. And you can take your guns with you,'

he said, addressing this last comment to the

towering alien.

Ishmael was still shaking.

'Don't worry,' Amy said, getting up and putting

an arm around the old man's shoulders. 'It's

all right. I told you, no one's going to hurt you.

You're not in danger anymore. You haven't done

anything wrong'

'Are you sure about that?' he said and pointed.

All eyes followed his quivering finger.

Beyond the corpse of the tyrannosaur, figures

were emerging from out of the undergrowth. It

was what was left of the crew of the Venture. But

as Amy watched they began to morph and change.

Arms and legs stretched and lengthened. Faces

melted to become skull-like masks. Unable to help

herself she gasped, putting a hand to her mouth.

The white, spectral shapes were moving towards

them now with long strides of their extended,

bony limbs.

At least a dozen of the skeletal aliens were

stalking towards the lake's edge and each one was

holding a blaster. All of the weapons were trained

on the Doctor and his human companions.

'Try telling them that,' Ishmael moaned.

'Hold!' the alien's voice rang out loud across the

lakeshore. Almost as one, the approaching

skeletal stalkers stopped.

'Lower your weapons,' the creature formerly

known as Sir Solomon Proudfoot instructed its

kin. 'I have the situation under control.'

'Commander M'lek, you have found the time

drive,' one of the closest of the approaching aliens

declared. There was something like delight in the

tone of its rattling voice.

'I have it Sol'n,' the Proudfoot-alien stated

with pride.

A loud, reptilian screech sounded across the

mirror-smooth surface of the lake.

'Oh no, not again!' Rory complained. His gaze

lingered on the T-Rex for a moment. It remained

where it was, slumped in the mud and brackish

water in front of the jettisoned drive.

'Look, it's very difficult to keep focused on

what I'm supposed to be doing with these constant

interruptions,' the Doctor grumbled, not once

looking up from what he was doing, 'but don't

worry, I'll have it fixed in another minute or two.'

Amy peered past the Doctor and the cube at the

waters of the lake beyond. The sky above changed

from black to purple in the blink of an eye and

then she saw it. It hadn't been there a moment ago,

but it was most certainly there now.

'Rory,' she hissed, pointing. 'Over there.'

Rory followed his wife's gaze. 'Marvellous,' he

muttered. 'Is that what I think it is?'

'If you're thinking it's a triceratops then I think

you're probably right,' Amy whispered back.

The aliens had seen the creature too.

'Calibas, prepare to defend the unit,' their leader

instructed them in its rattling desert-dry tones.

The other aliens responded immediately

targeting the dinosaur that was wading through

the shallows of the lake towards them with their

blasters. The lumbering beast raised its head and

snorted, shaking its frilled collar and horns in

anticipation of the battle that was surely to come.

His view of the approaching dinosaur blocked

by the massive mechanism of the time drive, the

Doctor glanced at the aliens.

'No!' the Doctor shouted. 'I said no guns!

What's the matter with you lot? Which part of 'no'

do you find so difficult to understand?'

His attention wholly on the aliens, the Time Lord

suddenly realised that the Calibas weren't pointing

their weapons at him or any of his companions.

Curious as to what it was they were aiming at, he

peered around the side of the corroded cube.

'Ah,' he said, catching sight of the charging bull

triceratops for himself. 'Now I understand. But

surely you're not going to shoot everything that

comes through the rift, are you?' Pulling his head

back in he turned to Commander M'lek. 'Now, I'm

sure there a simple solution that doesn't involve

you killing every living thing that comes through

that time fracture.'

'Doctor, whatever it is you've got in mind,' Amy

said anxiously, 'you'd better be quick.'

'Calibas, at my command,' M'lek instructed the

others of his kind. Long alien fingers began to

tighten on the firing mechanisms of twelve hyper-

velocity laser blasters.

There was suddenly a tremendous splashing of

water behind them as something massive struggled

to its feet. Ishmael Cain screamed.

A bullish cry boomed across the disturbed

lake. It was answered a moment later by a horribly

familiar reptilian roar.

Calibas, Time Lord and humans turned as

one from the snorting triceratops to face the

resurrected tyrannosaur rising to its feet behind

them. The carnivore stretched out its head and

roared again.

'How...?' Rory began as he and Amy backed

away from the beast to join the Doctor. Ishmael

just stood where he was, as white as a sheet, rooted

to the spot by sheer terror.

'Of course!' the Doctor exclaimed. He sounded

far more excited than seemed right, given the

desperate nature of their situation.

'Of course, we're in trouble now?' Amy

suggested. 'Of course, we're all going to die?'

'The leaking time field,' the Doctor said a

manic gleam in his eye. 'It reverses the physical

timeline of anyone — or anything — that's close

enough to it! It healed your cut, it appears to be

having a rejuvenating effect on old Ishmael and, as

Proudfoot — or whatever he is — only just gunned

it down, it's brought the T-Rex back to life.'

'Oh good,' Rory said. 'Just what we need. As

if dinosaurs weren't bad enough, now we've got

zombie dinosaurs.'

'No, not zombies,' the Doctor began. 'They're

something else entirely.'

'Look, boys, fascinating as this is, don't you

think we should do something more practical, like

run?' Amy asked.

'I can't,' the Doctor said, 'I have to finish

repairing the time drive otherwise this problem' —

he pointed at the advancing T-Rex with his sonic

— 'isn't going to go away.'

Amy stared up at the T-Rex and saw nothing

but hatred in its eyes.

She could hear the Calibas shouting to each

other in their rattlesnake voices but she could

also hear the grunts and snorts of the enraged

triceratops.

And then, giving another blood-curdling

crocodile roar, the tyrannosaur started to run.

They might have escaped the tyrannosaur's

hungry wrath twice before, but Amy doubted

they would escape it a third time.

And then she saw something in its jaundice-

yellow stare that gave her hope. Its needling gaze

wasn't focused on them but on something else

beyond the cube.

But the alien commander clearly hadn't seen

what she had seen. It was taking aim at the charging

T-Rex with its blaster once again.

'No!' Amy shouted, flinging herself at the

towering Calibas. 'Can't you see? It's not interested

in us!'

She grabbed the alien's arm just as it squeezed

the trigger, unbalancing it. The two of them fell

into the swampy water with a splash. The alien

weapon fired. A beam of red light shot from the

muzzle of the gun and hit the cube, only a few feet

from where the Doctor was still working on the

device.

He gave a yelp of surprise and then rounded on

the Calibas commander.

'I said no guns! Didn't anybody hear me? No

guns! No guns, no guns — NO GUNS!' he shouted.

'They only ever make things worse. And, quite

frankly, things were bad enough already!'

The gigantic carnivore thundered past the

damaged time drive and the quaking humans.

It ignored the gangly aliens too, as Amy knew it

would, and instead headed straight for the centre

of the lake. The triceratops was waiting for it there,

stamping its feet and pawing the water. Its head

down, the vicious prongs of its horns pointed

forwards, it was ready to meet the ferocious charge

of its age-old enemy.

'I told you we weren't in danger,' Amy said,

fixing the alien with a furious scowl.

'Are you sure about that?' Rory asked, helping

his wife up out of the lake. He was looking at

the cube.

The glow emanating from within the device

had changed from emerald green to a fiery orange,

while the whirring hum it was generating was rising

in pitch to a level that made Amy's ears ache.

'What's happening?' she said, looking at the

Doctor. He was scanning the drive with his sonic

screwdriver again.

'Our friend here's only made things about a

million times worse,' the Doctor snapped. 'Him

and his gun!'

And then he laid eyes on his companion again

and his thunderous expression was replaced by a

shocked 'O' of horrified surprise.

'Amy, I want you to step away from the time

drive,' he said with the kind of forced calm that

scared Amy more than a hungry T-Rex did.

'Why? What's the matter?'

There was something wrong with her voice. It

sounded too high-pitched.

'What's going on, Doctor?' Rory asked, and

Amy didn't like the worried tone in his voice

either. The pitch was heightened in alarm. 'What's

happening to her?'

'Hush!' the Doctor snapped. He was busy

working on the cube again, looking more manic

than ever.

'Never mind what's happening to me,' Amy

replied. 'What's happening to you?'

Rory had always been slim but now he looked

gangly, like he had as a teenager, when the two of

them were growing up in Leadworth.

'Rory,' she gasped, 'you're getting thinner!'

The two days' growth of stubble he had

collected on their latest adventure was gone too.

'I'm getting thinner?' he squeaked. 'What

about you?'

Amy glanced down at herself. Her clothes were

baggy about her and her boots were loose on her

feet. Nothing fitted properly any more.

'I'm shrinking!' she squealed.

'You're not shrinking,' the Doctor butted in,

without stopping what he was doing.

'Then what's happening to us, Doctor?' Rory

pleaded.

The Time Lord turned and looked down at the

two of them.

'You're getting younger,' he said. 'And at this

rate, in a matter of minutes you'll be babies again.

And after that...' The Doctor trailed off.

'After that what?' Amelia Pond demanded from

within the swathes of Amy's Pond clothes that

were now swamping her.

The Doctor took a deep breath. 'And after

that... Well, you won't have existed at all.'

'Right, there's no more time to lose,' the Doctor

said, spinning on his heel and resuming his

repair work on the time drive.

With a roar of hungry rage the tyrannosaur

caught up with the triceratops at last. The three-

horned beast grunted and braced itself, ready to

meet the other monster's charge.

'Can't we just run away?' a youthful Rory asked.

He looked about eight and appeared to have been

dressing up in his dad's clothes.

'There isn't time for that. You've already lost

about ten years each,' the Doctor said. 'Most likely

more. And you don't want to stay stuck at seven

years old, do you? Imagine. No more wine, and

bedtimes back to 7.30.'

'Doctor. Look.'

The Doctor turned. It was Ishmael Cain who

had spoken although he looked and sounded like a

different man. He stood tall and strong now. Much

of his grey hair had turned a lustrous black. The

mad old nutcase had been replaced by a vigorous

middle-aged man in his prime.

Only the Time Lord and the Calibas didn't look

any different.

The Doctor followed Ishmael's sparkling gaze,

turning his own eyes towards the flickering sky

above. Only it wasn't flickering any more. It was

now a permanent deep red, streaked with charcoal

smudges of cloud and the volcano on the horizon

had taken up permanent residence.

'What's going on, Doctor?' Amelia asked, fixing

the Time Lord with her large hazel eyes.

'Are we in the past?' Rory asked. 'I mean

dinosaur times?'

'No,' the Doctor said, hastily returning to his

work on the time drive. 'I mean, yes. And no.' He

took a deep breath. 'What I mean is the time energy

leaking from the cube is widening the fractures

exponentially to the point where the present is

effectively becoming the past. If I don't get the

time drive repaired, and quickly, the dinosaurs will

rule the Earth all over again and the human race

will cease to exist. Again.'

'Yea, though I walk through the valley of the

shadow of death,' Ishmael intoned, still staring at

the scarlet sky, 'I will fear no evil.'

'Can you do it, Doctor?' Commander M'lek

asked, something like fear shaping his alien features

now. 'Can you repair the damage?'

'Yes,' the Doctor said through gritted teeth, 'of

course I can. The actual question you should be

asking is can I do it in time?'

The noise of the battling behemoths echoed

across the lake but did nothing to drown out the

high-pitched humming coming from the cube.

Unable to do anything else, Rory and Amy

clasped hands, watching as the Doctor worked and

the dinosaurs fought, anxious expressions on their

young faces.

And then the ear-numbing noise began to drop

rapidly in tone and the evil orange light coming

from within the cube returned to a pulsing emerald

green.

Amy could see the change in the cube for

herself as well as hear it in the air around her. Now

she could feel it too. Her whole body felt like it was

stretching and swelling, and not in an unpleasant

way either. Her muscles were tingling, like they did

when she first woke in the morning and stretched.

She looked down at herself and watched as

her legs became longer until her boots fitted once

more, as did her clothes.

The same was happening to Rory. He was

gaining in height before her very eyes, and as he

grew to fill his own outfit, so the stubble appeared

again on his face.

Unfortunately for him, Ishmael Cain was aging

again as rapidly as the young couple. His muscles

withered and his posture became stooped once

more as his hair lost its colour in an instant.

'And—Voila! — Bob's your grandmother's cousin

seventeen times removed!' the Doctor announced,

waving his sonic screwdriver in a final flourish over

his head before depressing a button on its side.

There was a sonic boom, like a clap of thunder,

and a sudden change in air pressure. The force of

it made Amy's eyes water, and she had to swallow

hard to rid herself of the muffled sphere of silence

that suddenly surrounded her.

In the blink of an eye the sky became a dusky

blue-grey. The forest beyond the lake returned

to normal and, like a video recording that had

suddenly been turned off, the charging tyrannosaur

and the snorting triceratops vanished.

Only the Doctor, his companions, the corroded

metal cube, Ishmael Cain and the skeletal aliens

remained.

'You did it, Doctor!' Rory exclaimed, somehow

managing to look anxious and relieved at the same

time. 'You really did it!'

'What did he do?' the old man asked.

'Fixed the time drive, of course.' The Time

Lord flashed Ishmael Cain a child-like grin. 'And

in doing so I also just happened to seal the time

fractures. Nifty or what? There won't be any

more dinosaurs sneaking back through from the

prehistoric this way. The past's the past again and

there's no time like the present.'

'And no more Fountain of Youth, I suppose,'

Amy said.

'All good things must come to an end,' the

Doctor said sagely.

'Don't worry, I'm not complaining,' she replied.

'I'm not in a hurry to be seven again. Just imagine

it. I'd have to take my GCSEs all over again! And

they were bad enough the first time round.'

'So you will help us reattach the drive to our

ship?' the Proudfoot-alien said, addressing the

Doctor, its head bowed, its voice an emotionless

rattle.

'You know a 'thank you' wouldn't go amiss,' the

Doctor grunted. 'Not many people could do what

I've just done, up to their ankles in stinking swamp

water and armed with only a sonic screwdriver.

Which I might add, is a tool intended for...

tightening and loosening screws. I'm a bona fide

genius, me!'

'Oh, come on, Doctor,' Amy said, nudging him

in the ribs. You know that true geniuses are never

really appreciated during their lifetime.'

'Tell me about it,' the Doctor said with a sigh.

'Try eleven lifetimes!'

'So you will help us reattach the drive to our

ship?' Commander M'lek of the Calibas repeated.

'Yes, I'll help you,' the Doctor said, 'if only so I

and my friends can get on with the rest of our day.

Besides, I've had quite enough of you and your

itchy trigger finger. You know, I was hoping to be

catching up with Gutenberg by now and seeing

how his Bible was going.'

The Doctor gave the cube one more hard stare.

He looked like a car mechanic assessing a beat-up

old banger. Amy half expected him to suck in a

breath between his teeth at any moment and say,

'It'll cost ya.'

'What is it, Doctor?' she asked.

'I was just wondering how the Calibas are

proposing to get this back to their ship, wherever

it is,' the Doctor said. 'I don't know if it's possible

to fly the ship here but I'm guessing not, otherwise

surely you would have done that in the first place,'

he went on, addressing the alien again. 'If that's

not an option, which I suspect it isn't, if I could get

back to the TARDIS I could rig up a tractor beam

to tow the drive back to wherever the Calibas craft

is parked.'

'It's alright, Doctor, we can solve that problem

for ourselves,' M'lek rasped.

The alien turned to the rest of its crew. 'Calibas,

to work.'

The Doctor, Amy and Rory moved back from

the crashed cube. They took a seat on a mossy

log, alongside the uneasy Ishmael, and watched as

the spindly aliens surrounded the newly-repaired

time drive.

Those who had been carrying packs on their

backs ever since abandoning the Venture's lifeboats

and continuing on foot, whilst still in human form,

unslung them now. Putting the packs down on the

ground, they proceeded to take out a number of

metallic hemispheres. Each was as wide across as

a dinner plate. The aliens then proceeded to attach

them to every surface of the mud-splattered trans-

temporal drive.

'I wonder who they borrowed those off,' the

Doctor muttered, so that only his companions

could hear.

When all were in place, the Proudfoot-alien

activated another device which it was holding in

its spindly-fingered hands.

The air was suddenly alive with a throbbing

hum and as Amy and the others watched the

time drive rose gracefully into the air. Free of the

clinging muck, it stopped. It remained hovering a

metre above the surface of the lake, dripping mud

and waterweeds.

The alien turned to face the astonished Time

Lord and his companions. 'We are ready,' it said.

'No please,' the Doctor said, gesturing with an

exaggerated flourish of his arm, 'after you.'

Without packs of hungry or angry dinosaurs

running fast and loose about the Everglades

any longer, the walk back through the forest

was much more straightforward — although the

humidity didn't let up for a minute. Amy's clothes

were still sticking to her skin and she constantly

had to wipe the sweat from out of her eyes.

The Calibas had reactivated their cloaking

devices although Amy wondered why, other than

for the fact that it put Ishmael at his ease again.

And perhaps that was good enough reason.

But there was no disguising the fact that they

were trudging through the Everglades with a giant,

four metre by four metre cube of alien design

floating between them.

The route the Calibas took back through the

forest was a long and meandering one. Amy, Rory,

Ishmael and Sir Solomon Proudfoot's route to

the lake had been much more direct, but then

their journey had included a leap of faith off a

hundred-metre tall cliff. That had been followed

by a one-way ride downstream, over rapids and

another waterfall, which wasn't really an option for

the return journey.

They stopped as dusk gave way to night, now

that the normal passage of time within the region

had been restored. Amy fell asleep as soon as

her head hit her rolled up bomber jacket pillow,

despite the strange hoots, chirruping of insects

and jabbering cries that assailed the forest as the

sun set.

They set off again at dawn the next day. They

reached the spot where the Venture's crew had

beached their boats as the sun was climbing higher

across the sky overhead.

Running the boats back out into the river and

scrambling on-board, they let the current carry

them back downstream. The time drive bobbed

above the surface of the water as it kept up with

the boats, being towed by the anti-gravitic device

in Sir Solomon's hands. In no time at all, it seemed,

the river returned them to the mangrove swamps

bordering the coast and the sparkling waters of

the Gulf of Mexico.

The sun was a beaten bronze disc now, its

relentless heat pounding down upon their heads.

The boats rode the swell of the choppy ocean

waves, the curious expedition returning to the

Venture at long last. A whole day had passed since

they had set out on their quest to find the fabled

Fountain of Youth.

Captain Bartholomew appeared pleased to see

them. He also appeared completely unfazed by the

fact that Proudfoot's party had brought an alien

trans-temporal drive unit back with them from

their mission into the Florida Everglades. He did

appear slightly more perturbed by the fact that the

crew were somewhat depleted since he had said

last seen them.

'So you're one of them too,' the Doctor said,

clambering up the rusted boarding ladder onto the

deck of the tramp steamer.

The captain looked at him for a moment, brows

knitting and eyes narrowing in suspicion.

'If by 'one of them' you mean —'

'The Calibas. You're one of the Calibas,' the

Doctor interrupted.

'Then yes. I'm 'one of them'.'

The Doctor's companions joined him back on-

board the ship, as did Ishmael Cain and the rest

of Proudfoot's expeditionary party. The sailors

quickly set about lowering the time drive into the

hold on its anti-grav repulsors.

'Right, well let's not beat about the bush any

longer,' the Time Lord said. 'If you'd like to take

me back to your ship then we can get this thing

reattached' — he waved his screwdriver at the

descending cube — 'and, more importantly, we can

send you on your way. I'm sure you could do with

my help.'

'But we're already there,' Proudfoot said, a wry

smile curling the lips of his strangely human face.

'What? Oh, I see. At the bottom of the sea, is

it?' the Doctor said. He peered over the side of

the ship as if half-expecting to see an alien craft

suspended there in the greeny gloom below the

waves. 'Can't be helped really. After all, only one

third of the Earth's surface is actually land so the

statistical probability is that you're always more

likely to end up in the drink.'

'No, Doctor,' the cloaked alien said, still smiling.

'You don't understand. The Venture is our ship.'

'What?' Rory gasped, staring at the rolling ship.

'This old bucket of bolts is your ship?'

'Why not,' Amy said. We fly around the universe

inside a 1950s police box.'

'Good point.'

'So your ship utilises the same cloaking

technology that gives you a human appearance, all

based on the memories of poor Ishmael here,' the

Doctor said.

'That's right, Doctor,' Proudfoot confirmed.

'Right then. Well you'd better show me where

you want your reconditioned time drive installed.'

A croaking guttural roar - that spoke of a

primeval hunger that could not be satisfied — cut

through the splash of the surf and the distant cries

of sea birds.

'Don't tell me...' Amy began.

Rory looked at her with terror in his eyes. 'The

liopleurodon!' he finished.

'But Doctor, I thought you sealed the time

fractures when you repaired the drive,' Amy

said, struggling to hide the anxiety from her voice.

The roar sounded over the waves again, closer

this time.

'I did!' the Doctor protested.

The Venture suddenly lurched. All on-board

were sent staggering towards the starboard bow, as

something struck the ship a resounding blow from

below. Amy gave a scream despite herself.

The Doctor's face fell. 'Only trouble is, in doing

sol also trapped whatever had already come through

the rifts here, in the late nineteenth century.'

'Now he tells us.'

The sea beside the ship suddenly exploded. A

great drenching wave crashed across the deck, and

all those on it, as a monstrous, reptilian head broke

the surface, jaws agape, eyes glistening like black

pearls, and with murder on its mind.

The Doctor grimaced in embarrassment. 'I

forgot about the liopleurodon.'

'The T-Rex went back through,' Amy said as

she began to piece the puzzle together for herself.

'And the stegosaur herd had already gone back

through,' the Doctor continued.

'The triceratops never made it through in the

first place,' Amy added.

'Which just leaves the liopleurodon.'

The croaking reptilian cry echoed eerily over

the ocean.

'I hope.'

For a moment Amy could have believed that

it was they who were trapped in the primeval past

and not the super-predator that was trapped in

the present. Although it wasn't the present as she

knew it - it was still the late nineteenth century.

'I've stranded it here,' the Doctor said, his voice

quiet. 'I'm such an idiot!' he suddenly shouted,

smacking his forehead with the palm of his hand.

'How could I have been so careless?'

'But it wasn't your fault,' Amy said, grabbing

hold of the gunwale as another wave swamped the

deck.

'The damage was already done, Doctor,' Rory

added.

'Right, well I think it's time for a little damage

limitation then, don't you?' the Doctor said, his

expression grim.

'Come on!' he called to the leader of the aliens

who was still masquerading as the late Sir Solomon

Proudfoot. The Doctor bounded across the deck

with the surefootedness of a cat. 'Let's get the

drive reinstalled and then get you out of here.'

'What about the beast?' the alien who had taken

on the form of Captain Bartholomew demanded.

'You'll just have to do your best to fend it off!'

the Doctor called back. 'But no guns!' he added

sternly, before disappearing through a hatch that

led down into the belly of the steamer-cum-alien-

time-ship. He was followed by the Proudfoot-alien.

'But you said yourself, Doctor,' the captain

called back, 'it shouldn't even be here!'

'I won't have the creature's death on my

conscience along with the knowledge that it's been

displaced time. If you kill it, I'll leave you stranded

here too!'

'Do as he says!' Proudfoot shouted back.

The captain studied the sea beyond the bow of

the boat where the liopleurodon had dived beneath

the waves again. 'You heard him!' he ordered the

crew. 'Grab anything you can and keep the beast

at bay, or none of us will be leaving this time-

forsaken planet!'

The crew, with Rory and Amy's assistance,

battled the marine monster for a good ten

minutes, although it seemed considerably longer.

The liopleurodon kept coming back for another

go. Here an oar turned to matchwood between

its crushing jaws; there a recovered lifeboat was

knocked from its cradle. The monster continued to

slam its massive body into the side of the steamer,

sending all those on deck reeling and struggling to

stay on their feet.

'Done?' Amy asked as the Doctor emerged

from the hatch ten minutes later. His hair was still

not dry from his soaking on deck, but he looked

better than either she or Rory did.

'Done!' he announced proudly.

'So, we can go now?' Rory asked, wielding the

paddle of a lifeboat in defence of the ship as if it

were a battle-axe.

'Absolutely,' the Doctor said, with a heart-felt

sigh of relief.

The three time travellers turned from the

gunwales and the battle with the beast. Ducking

and weaving across the deck, and along the narrow

gangways, they made for the stern of the ship.

There, parked between piles of tarpaulin-

draped crates, was what appeared to be a weathered

wooden box. At some stage in its life it had been

painted blue. A broad smile spread across the

Doctor's face as he caught sight of the TARDIS

again.

'Hello, old girl,' he said, patting the door of the

police box affectionately. 'Missed me?'

Using what looked like an ordinary house key,

he unlocked the TARDIS and ushered his friends

inside.

Amy's face lit up in excitement as she trotted

inside after her husband. And then suddenly she

halted. 'What about Ishmael?' she said.

'Good point!' the Doctor exclaimed. 'I knew

I'd forgotten something.'

Amy laughed. 'You know, for someone with a

brain the size of a planet, you can be really stupid

sometimes.'

'Right, don't go anywhere. I'll be back in a tick!'

With that the Doctor disappeared again.

He dashed back across the deck, dodging the

mini tsunamis that the liopleurodon's thrashing

flippers sent crashing over the bedraggled crew.

He found the old man, his mop still clasped tightly

in his hands, standing shoulder-to-shoulder with

Sir Solomon Proudfoot, and beating the monster

on the snout whenever it came within reach.

'Ishmael!' the Doctor gasped. 'Come with us!'

The old man looked back at the Doctor. His

eyes sparkled under the brim of his pith helmet.

'Go where, sah?'

The Doctor ducked a swipe from the sea

monster's forelimb. 'From here!' He had to shout

to be heard over the croaking cries of the beast

and the crash of water against the steel hull of

the ship.

'In that flying blue box of yours, you mean?'

'That's the one.'

The Doctor was suddenly aware of a throbbing

bass note, that he could feel as much as hear. It

rose from the bowels of the ship, reverberating

through every fibre of his being.

'Thanks for thinking of me,' the old man said.

A tear was forming at the corner of one eye.

'But I'm alright now. The visions that tormented

me for so long have gone, now that the fractures

have closed. And besides, I'm back amongst my

old crew,' he added. 'I'd rather stay, if it's all the

same to you.' He directed this last comment at the

thing that now resembled Sir Solomon Proudfoot

once more.

'You would be most welcome, Ishmael Cain,'

Proudfoot replied.

'If you're sure?' the Doctor pressed.

'I'm old, Doctor. I'm lucky to be alive at all after

the hurricane wrecked the Venture and drowned

its crew. Not many people get a second chance at

my time of life. But I have a feeling that the real

adventure is only just beginning.'

'Never let it be said that I would ever stand

in the way of a man and his destiny,' the Doctor

announced. Suddenly standing to attention, he

saluted smartly. 'Ishmael, it's been a pleasure, sah!'

'Likewise, Doctor,' the old man said, returning

the salute.

'Sir Solomon, or Commander M'lek, or

whatever it is you're called,' the Doctor mumbled,

nodding at the alien currently wearing the form of

a Victorian gentleman explorer.

'Doctor,' Sir Solomon Proudfoot returned.

'And, as I believe this body would say, thank you.'

'Right,' the Doctor announced, flinging himself

through the door and into the TARDIS's main

console chamber. The lock caught with a click as

he slammed it securely shut behind him. 'Time we

were off!'

Amy and Rory were already waiting in eager

anticipation beside the hexagonal control console,

ready to go.

The Doctor joined them there, deftly flicked a

few switches, pulled a few levers and wound a few

handles. In response, the time rotor began to rise

and fall as the TARDIS's engines wheezed into

life. There was a jolt and then stability returned.

Pulling down the viewing monitor, the Doctor

turned a knurled knob and an image flickered into

being on the screen washed with grainy static.

'It's the Venture,' Rory said as the image of the

ship resolved into clarity on the screen. 'Does that

mean we're not on-board anymore?'

'Not anymore,' the Doctor said. 'Now watch

this.'

They watched as the Venture became suffused

with lurid green light. They could see the

liopleurodon too, although it was retreating now,

repelled no doubt by the eerie emerald glow, as any

animal would have been. And then the creature

abruptly dived from view beneath the waves.

Rory's jaw dropped even lower as the tramp

steamer began to rise into the air. When it was

several metres above the churning surface of the

ocean it stopped, hovering over the turmoil left in

its wake, as sea water ran in torrents from its deck

and hull.

The glow intensified until the screen was ablaze

with searing white light. A moment later, the light

vanished, accompanied by a sound like the pop of

changing air pressures. Blinking in the aftermath

of the brilliant glare, Amy stared at the screen,

her face washed in the orange-green glow of the

console room.

All that she could see through the viewer was

the surge of the sea, and nothing more. 'It's gone,'

she said.

'Thank goodness for that,' the Doctor said. 'My

quick fix worked.'

'So the Calibas are on their way again, travelling

through time,' Rory said.

'Yes, but back to their own time. I took the

precaution of locking the time drive temporal

destination coordinates. Don't want any more near

misses, do we? And we should be on our way too.'

The Doctor turned his attention to the console

controls once more. 'What did we agree on in

the end?'

'What about the liopleurodon?' Amy asked, still

staring at the empty ocean as seen via the TARDIS

viewer. 'I mean it's still stuck out there somewhere,

isn't it, all alone, a hundred million years from home?'

'Never mind that,' Rory said. 'There's a

prehistoric marine predator roaming the oceans

of late nineteenth century Earth.'

'And your point is?' the Doctor asked.

'How are people going to explain that away?'

'Perhaps they won't,' the Doctor said. 'It will

just have to remain one of life's little mysteries.

And where would be the fun in life if it weren't for

the odd mystery here and there?'

'Like the Loch Ness Monster, you mean?' Rory

said.

'Something like that,' the Doctor replied. 'Now,

where were we? I don't know about you, but after

all that I fancy visiting somewhere nice and quiet —

like the Hundred Years War!'

And with that, wheezing like an asthmatic

elephant as it rotated slowly above the waves

of the Gulf of Mexico, the blue wooden box

dematerialised.

GARY RUSSELL

The Doctor was in the TARDIS, standing in front

of a tall mirror. He was gently swaying from

side to side swishing his new long green overcoat

around.

'Good fit, yes?'

No response.

Of course not — the TARDIS was empty.

Amy and Rory were safely tucked up in their

new home in 21st century Leadworth. He tried

to picture Amy, out in the back garden, probably

battling with a barbeque while Rory was off

somewhere, perhaps whizzing around the Forest

of Dean in that new sports car the Doctor had got

him.

And River Song? Back in her cell at the

Stormcage Facility in the 51st century, most likely.

Unless it was night time, in which case she and a

younger version of him (or maybe a slightly older

one, who knows) were probably out somewhere,

dining in Paris, examining modern art in New

York or painting the town a variety of shades of

rood in Amsterdam.

Or perhaps they were in Cersis Major, climbing

the golden rock faces. Or Talusia, helping the

Weavers and their web-sky-cities stay aloft.

Or maybe even having a swift bottle of pop

with Jim the Fish and his extraordinary family

under the starlight on his waterworld.

And he didn't want to think what the dozens of

other fellow travellers he'd known and befriended

over the years were up to since leaving his TARDIS.

Because that way, madness lay.

But no matter what face he wore, the Doctor

never liked being alone in the TARDIS.

The TARDIS, he was convinced, disliked it

equally. Somehow everything seemed a bit more

sluggish, a bit slower to respond. The lights

seemed a bit dimmer, the ambient temperature a

few degrees cooler.

'I know,' he said to the time rotor as it rose and

fell within its glass tubing. He stroked a few of

the controls on the console, and blew some dust

off the old record player that he'd restored after

someone chucked a spear into it once.

He couldn't remember how or why or when

that happened. Things like that tended to blur

in his memory. Having companions aboard the

TARDIS always kept things in focus; if someone

had been here, he'd have been able to say the exact

date and time that it had happened, he'd have a

point of reference for it, something to trigger the

memory.

'Doctor,' he declared aloud to himself. 'Doctor,

Doctor, Doctor, someone is getting a bit maudlin,

and a teensy weensy bit stir crazy. Loneliness is all

in the mind - there's a universe or ten out there to

explore. Tell you what Doctor, let's play "Reckless

Randomiser" - that's always fun.'

He threw himself at the coordinate control

panel, and shut his eyes, simultaneously rolling

the palms of his hands over all the switches, dials,

'touch-sensitive rollers and archaic levers and

pulleys, all at once.

And then he'd count to ten, turn around four

times and see where he was heading next.

'Reckless Randomiser' could be such fun.

He did this.

And looked at the result.

'Typical.'

He pulled a switch and on the huge TARDIS

scanner, and all the smaller screens dotted around

the control room, a planet appeared.

'Earth. What's random about that? Or reckless,

to be honest?'

The Doctor felt a twinge in his head. 'Oww.

Ow, ow and oww again,' he said, diving into an

inside pocket of his long green coat and pulling

out the little wallet containing his psychic paper.

He stared at it.

HELLO THERE. NEED HELP PLEASE. UNIT

MOONBASE ONE. ARCHITECTS (AND BUDGET)

GETTING OUT OF HAND. NEED SORTING BY THE

MINISTRY. THANX. THE KOMMANDANT.

He thought about it. UNIT - yup knew them,

not always fond of them but there had been a

few golden moments. The Moon, yup, that he

knew. Been there more than once — indeed, he'd

been to Moonbase One itself a few times over

the centuries, where it had been used variously

as everything from a weather control system to a

prison to a huge children's amusement park. Oh,

that rollercoaster...

The Kommandant? That, however, meant

nothing, no one he knew.

Occasionally, the psychic paper picked up

messages not actually meant for him, sort of like

picking up a satellite TV station from another

country when retuning the digibox.

Or at least that was how Rory had described it

once. The Doctor had agreed in principle even if

he didn't quite get the analogy.

And this absolutely looked like one of those

times. After all, what did he know about architects?

There was something about Shadow Architects in

his memory but he was pretty sure that wasn't the

same thing at all...

The TARDIS landed.

The Doctor threw a look up into the ether.

'Thank you. Are you trying to tell me I need

something to occupy myself with? Well, all right.

We'll nose around for half an hour - just thirty

minutes. Then I'm coming back and we'll find

somewhere really random to go that you can't

influence.'

As if in answer, the TARDIS lights went a bit

brighter.

With a sigh, the Doctor checked his psychic

paper was back in his trousers, that there was a

Jammie Dodger in his top pocket and a smile on

his face and he exited the TARDIS.

And walked straight into a door. The TARDIS

had deposited him inside a very small storeroom.

Very small.

He reached out and found a wheel on the door,

and turned it with one hand, which was strangely

difficult. It was designed for two-handed turning,

but as his right hand and arm were squashed

between the TARDIS and the wall, that was not

going to happen.

The door eventually swung open (outwards,

into the corridor, luckily) and the Doctor heaved

himself into the brightly lit space. Bland walls,

bland floors and bland ceilings. Everything was

varying shades of dull white. In other words, bland.

'Imagine if this place had colour,' he muttered.

'Some pictures pinned up. Or some nice murals

painted on the walls. Now that would be nice.'

Everything was built on a curve, so he couldn't

see what was, literally, just around the corner.

Popping the Jammie Dodger in his mouth,

he walked forward, keeping a hand close to the

psychic paper in case it was needed. Every so

often he passed a UNIT insignia stencilled on a

door, and military-types were often shoot first, ask

questions afterwards types.

As he munched on his biscuit, two men in

UNIT black coveralls and red berets marched

towards him. 'Here we go...' he muttered under his

breath.

'Oh there you are,' smiled one of the soldiers,

'we thought you'd got lost.'

The other tapped his ear, activating some kind

of bluetooth device. 'Greyhound Eighteen to Trap

Six, we found him, Kommandant.'

'Wasn't aware I was lost,' the Doctor smiled.

'My name is —'

'S'alright, Mr Moss,' the first soldier said.

'People take a wrong turn up here and it can take

you an hour just to walk the circumference of the

Base. Not a problem. The others are waiting for

you. This way.'

With a shrug to himself, the Doctor let himself

be marched along the curved Moonbase corridor,

noting various rooms and signs that he passed.

One in particular intrigued him.

'What's HEART?' he asked.

'All will be explained by the American,' a soldier

said.

'Ah, Americans, they know everything,' the

Doctor joked. 'Or think they do.'

'That's right sir,' said the soldier in a tone of

voice that neither implied he agreed or didn't.

As they walked on, a door opened behind them.

'Sergeant?'

The two soldiers and the Doctor stopped and

turned. Both UNIT men saluted.

'Mr Moss, yes?' continued the man in a German

accent. He was looking at the Doctor, clearly

thinking he was this Mr Moss person. 'I am the

Kommandant. May I say I am very glad to have

you up here.'

'My pleasure, Kommandant,' the Doctor said.

'Your message sounded... urgent. I got here as

fast as possible. Your lads here were marvellous at

finding me too. I got lost, I'm afraid.'

The Kommandant looked the Doctor up and

down.

Sensing a challenge to his sartorial elegance, the

Doctor flicked his hair back a bit and tweaked his

bow tie.

But the Kommandant smiled, perhaps used

to such... eccentricity in the civilians that came to

the Moon every so often. 'Listen, if you can sort

out Mr Galan, I'll be incredibly grateful. See what

you think and after your meeting, let's talk again.

Sergeant Tanner?'

'Yes sir?'

'Stay with the architects please and bring Mr

Moss back to my office afterwards, would you?'

'Sir.'

Sergeant Tanner and the other soldier escorted

the Doctor on again. It occurred to the Doctor to

wonder what he would do when the real Mr Moss

— who they clearly believed him to be — wandered

up from wherever he was. But he'd cross that

bridge when he came to it.

A few minutes later, he was being ushered

into a huge room, with a high domed ceiling,

and kitted out with foldaway chairs arranged in a

circle around the outside. Many of the chairs were

occupied, although not so many that the people

outnumbered them.

In the centre of the room was a relief map of

the Moon's surface, with the Moonbase at one side.

Standing by this map, addressing the seated

listeners, a mixture of civilians and UNIT personnel

of differing ranks, was a tall man in glasses.

Beside him, a shorter man was relentlessly

tapping on a tablet, swiping pages away and doing

that strange finger movement that meant he was

enlarging or decreasing images now and again.

They hadn't yet invented a proper word for that.

They would. The Doctor thought "zooping" was a

good word for it — mainly because in three hundred

years time, he'd accidentally added "zooping" to

the Galactic Humanish Dictionary without giving

it a definition. This seemed as good a time as any

to come up with one.

The man continued "zooping" and the taller

one continued talking.

Both were American, both had dull voices that

made the Doctor sleepy and both were talking a

load of nonsense about the surface of the moon,

mapping its peaks and troughs and something

about buying the dark side back from the Korean

Unity, although no one knew how they owned it in

the first place.

'Oh, that was me..,' the Doctor was about to

say, remembering the game of draughts he'd

won against Kim someone or other back in the

1950s, which had meant that in seventy years, the

two Koreas would amicably become one, and,

in exchange, they'd get real estate on the moon.

Or something. The Doctor had never been too

sure of the details as River Song had been there,

causing trouble with one of the more pompous

families and they'd had to make a quick getaway.

So here, in the assembly area of Moonbase

One, the Doctor thought it best to keep that one

to himself.

He was aware that standing by the door, getting

slightly in the way of Sergeant Tanner and other

guards, was a small man in white coveralls, carrying

a red toolbox. He seemed to be a maintenance

man, trying to fix a problem with one of the air

vents at the point where the wall met the floor.

He watched the man unscrew the small vent, but

couldn't quite see what else he was doing. To the

Doctor it seemed that all he was doing was staring

into the vent, before replacing the grill, nodding to

the soldiers and then leaving. The whole exercise

seemed to have been a waste of time. Oh well.

'Bob?' called out one of the American voices.

'Bob?' it repeated.

After a second the Doctor realised that the two

Americans were looking at him.

'You're Bob Moss, yeah?' the taller one asked

loudly.

Yes. Yes, absolutely. Bob Moss. Ministry of...

Architects and Cartographers,' he said with a smile.

'Sorry I'm late.'

The Americans looked like they'd never heard

of such a Ministry (hardly surprising).

'Zeppatelli,' the tall one said, 'take Bob outside,

show him the lay of the land.'

The smaller man nodded and wandered over to

the Doctor, holding out a hand to shake, which the

Doctor did.

'C'mon, Bob,' Zeppatelli said. 'Galan can talk

for hours, and we don't need to listen to his plans

for the other Moonbases. I guess you've read the

specs and schedules by now.'

'Oh yes. Absolutely,' lied the Doctor. 'Nice to

meet you after... so long.'

Zeppatelli frowned. 'Heck, it's only been three

weeks since you emailed us.'

'Feels like forever,' the Doctor said quickly.

Zeppatelli shrugged.

They headed back out of the big room, but the

Doctor stopped and eased Sergeant Tanner to one

side very slightly and peered down at where the

maintenance man had unscrewed the vent cover

then put it back.

Nothing.

Nothing weird. Or strange. Or unusual.

Nothing except the fact that he had done it at all.

Perhaps, the Doctor decided, that was mysterious

enough.

Sergeant Tanner told them he'd lead them to

the Suit Room to get kitted up for a Moonwalk.

And that he was coming with them.

A few moments later, they were seated in

a small buggy, and Zeppatelli was driving it out

across the dusty surface — a bit too fast for the

Doctor's liking.

26 June 2017

Lukas Minski watched as the door swung outwards,

slowly but steadily

His heart felt like it was going ten to the dozen

as he stepped through the doorway — it was his

first time, and he was determined to enjoy it, fear

and everything.

Because what he was doing was dangerous. No

two ways about that. Each step was potentially

lethal — a misstep here, a trip there, anything could

kill him.

There were more things that could kill him in

a square metre than could save him - something

drilled into him from the earliest days in training.

Not a nice thought, but one that he'd never

forgotten. After all, no one wanted a repeat of

what had happened to Carlos.

As he took a few steps forward, he could see

the buggy parked ahead, and a group of three guys

standing around, waiting for him.

In his hand, he carried his red toolbox -

everything he needed to justify what he was doing

was in there.

He eventually made it to the buggy and could

see straight away what the problem was — one of

the wheels had hit a rock and twisted, shearing the

rear axel.

'That's a big job,' he explained to the guys.

'Really? I hadn't noticed,' said the American.

The driver, Lukas knew. Arrogant man, but good

at his job. He was an architect and was responsible

for what were currently referred to as 'the lower

levels', usually said in a tone of voice that suggested

they were somehow scary and threatening. They

weren't. They were exactly what they said — lower

levels. Architects always liked to exaggerate their

own importance.

'What speed were you to be doing?'

'Who cares,' said one of the others. That was

the UNIT man — he wore sergeant stripes on the

arm of his spacesuit. Lukas tried to remember his

name without success. 'Can you fix it?'

'Yes sir, but it is taking me up to maybe a couple

of hours - I'm new to this. You as well to go back

in and wait, yes?'

The three men looked in Lukas' direction — he

could tell from their limited body language that

they weren't happy, but there was nothing that

could be done. If they'd driven the buggy less

recklessly, they wouldn't have this problem, would

they?

Three of them walked off immediately, but

one hung back.

'You going to be all right out here alone?' he

asked Lukas in an English accent. Your first week,

yeah?'

Lukas said he'd be fine, and held his toolbox

up carefully. 'My first job actually out here,' he said

proudly. 'This toolbox, it was a gift from Darya,

my wife. New tools for a new career.'

'New career, Mr...?'

'Minski. Lukas Minski.' Lukas said. 'I work in

the UNIT museums, in Georgia, lots of treasures

and pictures. Very pretty, but often sad stories.

The museum, it was full of things that it shouldn't

have, things not originally theirs,' he said. Then he

coughed, as if realising he was rambling on too

much. 'But I grow bored, sat all day, watching fat,

rich people stare at things they not understand.

I like using my hands, so Darya say it was time

to do something new before I go mad with

the boredom.' He laughed. 'Never argue with the

wife, yes?'

The Englishman nodded. 'Absolutely. I've tried

arguing with mine, all that ended up doing was

changing the entire history of the universe. More

than once I imagine.'

Lukas stared at the man, but couldn't see his

face through the visor. 'Okay,' he said a little

carefully, as if talking to a madman. 'So now I am

working with my hands, mending things, making

everything from the lights work to fixing the cars.

I believe you English say I get to the heart of the

matter, no?'

The Englishman laughed. 'I'm not really

English, Lukas. I just do the accent.'

Again Lukas, unable to see the man's face,

couldn't be sure how serious he was being. He

bent down and tapped a six-digit code on the red

toolbox's lock and it sprang open.

'Security,' he said. 'Have to keep my tools safe,

yes?'

The Englishman was watching Lukas intently

— he could feel his eyes on him even through the

darkened visor. 'Absolutely,' he said. Then he

pointed to a photo glued into the underside of the

now-open lid. It showed a blonde woman and a

small blonde girl. Very austere, standing in front

of a church, dressed in black.

'Family?' he asked Lukas.

Lukas glanced down at the photo. 'It is to be

the day of Anni's birth next week. She is to be ten.

She was expecting to have a big party, but I don't

think so now. That is making me sad. She is the

reason for everything I am doing.'

Lukas was still getting his tools ready when

it occurred to him the Englishman had stopped

speaking. He glanced up, and the Englishman

seemed to be staring across the path where the

buggy had stopped, his hand raised trying to keep

the sun off his polarised visor.

'What is problem?' Lukas asked him.

'Dunno,' the Englishman said. 'Thought I saw

movement.'

Lukas stood up. 'What kind of movement? No

one else scheduled to be around here, are they?'

'No, it wasn't people. It was like... oh well,

doesn't matter.'

Lukas frowned. 'Seriously, what is the problem?'

The Englishman shrugged. 'You'll think I'm

mad.'

'You work here,' Lukas laughed. 'Of course

you are mad. We all are to be up here.'

But the Englishman wasn't laughing. 'You

know that movement you see in those nature

documentaries — those snakes that move sideways

in a sort of S shape?' He made the movement with

his gloved space suited hands.

Lukas laughed. 'You see snakes out here?

Sidewinders? Here?'

The Englishman put his hands up in mock

surrender. Yeah, okay. Must be the sunlight

creating mirages or something. Anyway, I'll see

you inside. I'll get Zeppatelli to buy you a drink to

say thanks for fixing the buggy he's wrecked.'

Lukas smiled. 'Okay, yes, deal. I find you in the

Mess in ninety minutes or so.'

The Englishman tapped the side of his head

with his finger in mock salute. 'Cheers, Lukas. See

you later.'

Lukas watched him wander back to join his

friends inside and as the door closed behind him,

shutting him away from Lukas, the mechanic was

pleased. He preferred working alone and in silence.

He loved his machines, loved fixing them.

He had been building a small model of a buggy

to celebrate his daughter's birthday. He knew it

wasn't an ideal use of his free time, but shopping

was... limited here, so homemade presents were

the best you could get.

As he bent down to his toolbox, Lukas's eyes

drifted towards where the Englishman had seen

the strange movement.

And for a second Lukas saw something too.

Perhaps it was a trick of the sunlight on the ground.

He started to focus on repairing the knackered

buggy axel.

And then he stopped again. Something was

there, he just knew it.

The trouble with spacesuits and their visored

helmets was that they limited your vision - Lukas

could look straight ahead and a bit to either side,

but by the time he'd moved his entire body around

in zero gravity, whatever was behind him could

have leapt up and grabbed him.

Nevertheless, he did turn around - and there

they were.

Facing him. Thin, silvery creatures.

They were snakes, like cobras from Earth,

with the hoods. Dark sulphurous yellow eyes that

suggested decay glinted, eyelids nictitated back

and forth as they seemed to focus in on him.

Their hooded heads rocked back and forth and

one of them opened its mouth to reveal sharp

fangs.

But what was really freaky... other than the

simple fact there were creatures, snakes even, on

the Moon's surface, was that they were metallic

silver rather than the multi-coloured scales of

snakes back home. Maybe it was the sunlight,

maybe it was madness, but Lukas swore there was

something about their skin... not robotic, more

like - but no, that was impossible!

With their cobra-like hoods extended and

rocking back and forth, as if trying to work out

how to strike him, which bit of his suit to puncture,

the impossible was indeed facing Lukas Minski.

Space snakes.

Lukas wanted to laugh at the ludicrousness of

it - but he didn't.

Instead he reached towards his red toolbox.

'Not yet,' he said. 'Please, not yet...'

As one, the snakes lunged across the surface

of the Moon towards him, so much faster than

anything Lukas had ever seen before. He threw up

his hands to protect himself...

Three days later, the base Kommandant was

reading the report that Bob Moss had submitted

before he had returned to Earth (it briefly

registered in the Kommandant's mind that no one

had actually seen Moss go, but that didn't matter).

Moss had also proven to be as good as the

Kommandant had hoped — he'd calmed the two

Americans down, got them to stop trying to

dominate meetings and also found ways to bring

their plans in way under budget. So far under

budget that UNIT were considering a couple of

other corporations who had submitted ideas that

might be even more economically viable. Moss

had been responsible for putting their tenders in

front of the Kommandant too. What a good man

Bob Moss was.

But for now, he was more interested in this

report — because it detailed the initial buggy

accident, and that Lukas Minski had reported at

1425 CET to repair it.

The architect's team had returned to base but

Moss had stayed outside with Minski a few more

minutes. His report made mention of the strange

phenomena he had seen on the ground, which he

had referred to as 'snakes'.

The Kommandant pressed the delete key, and

the references to snakes were obliterated.

It wouldn't be good to have that on anything

official at this stage of development. And Moss

had signed enough forms to ensure that he'd be

locked up for years for breathing a word about this

back home.

The Kommandant saved the document and

emailed it to HQ, naming it:

FILE LM/dec/Unexp.doc

He attached the one photo, showing the crashed

buggy, and Lukas Minski's abandoned spanner just

sitting there beside it with a small torn picture.

There was another photo taken shortly

afterwards, where the spanner was gone, but

its shape was still indented into the dust. As it

always would be. The spanner was now in lock-up,

evidence along with that photo.

The Kommandant briefly glanced at the photo

within the photo, which seemed to show a woman

and a young girl by a church. He checked his

records - yes, Minski had a wife and daughter. With

a heavy heart, the Kommandant knew someone

would have to tell them that their husband/father

had vanished in an inexplicable manner and should

be presumed dead.

They'd get his full benefits of course, but he

knew that was really no consolation for Lukas'

death.

Maybe he'd ask Bob Moss to go to their house

and tell them. He was the last person to speak to

Lukas. He could tell them his mood, tell them what

he'd told the Kommandant about the birthday and

pass on the gift they'd found in Lukas Minski's

room.

Yes, he could do it - the English were good at

things like that. The Kommandant could always

pull the old, 'Oh you know us Europeans, we're

never the best at breaking the sad news, people say

we don't have the empathy,' and other nonsense.

He noted that Minski's toolbox was missing

from the evidence. A red metal one according to

witnesses. The photo and spanner were left behind

but Minski, or whoever was responsible for his

disappearance, took the toolbox too.

Why?

The Kommandant shut down his computer

and sighed.

Snakes indeed.

Space snakes.

On the surface of the Moon.

How ridiculous was that?

He was interrupted by a knock on the door.

'Come.'

It opened and Sergeant Tanner saluted him.

'You look... concerned, Tanner,' the

Kommandant said.

'We have an intruder, sir,' Tanner reported.

'At least, I think he is. He says he's here at your

request.'

'Who is it?' The Kommandant shut down his

tablet and slid it into a drawer.

A small, balding man in a dark suit and carrying

an attache case pushed past Tanner and stood

facing the Kommandant.

'I must make a formal complaint, Kommandant,'

he said angrily. 'Since I got here, your troops have

treated me like a criminal, accusing me of spying,

of being an imposter and most of all, refusing

to believe my credentials. You asked me here,

Kommandant, you sort it out.'

The Kommandant looked at Tanner with a

shrug, then smiled at the angry newcomer. He was

English - always so angry, the English.

'I'm very sorry, but I have no idea what you are

talking about,' he said calmly. 'Who are you?'

The Englishman snatched a piece of paper that

Tanner was carrying - presumably Tanner had

taken it from him earlier.

'There,' he said. 'Look.'

It was an official UNIT docket, giving

permission for him to come to the Moon and carry

out tasks as required. It bore the Kommandant's

signature.

He glanced at the name at the top. 'Is this a

joke, Tanner?'

Tanner shook his head. 'Sorry sir, no idea.'

The Kommandant looked at the angry man in

front of him. 'And this is you, is it? You are Robert

Moss, from the Ministry?'

The man produced a photo ID.

'Yeah, I'm Bob Moss,' he said. 'And you invited

me here!'

The Kommandant looked from Moss to

Tanner. 'Then who the hell, Sergeant Tanner, was

the "Bob Moss" who has been in Moonbase One

for the last few days?'

But Sergeant Tanner couldn't answer that.

Eight years later - 8 April 2025

Sam took a deep breath and closed his eyes.

Why was he first? That was weird. Surely one

of the others, one of the grown-ups, should have

pushed their way to the front, been all cocky and

confident. But they hadn't. They'd sort of let him

take the lead this once. Great — thanks everyone.

And that voice he knew came from the very

back — but because it was coming through a

helmet speaker, it sounded like it was right next to

him. Someone was telling him everything was fine

and safe - provided he followed 'procedures'.

Sam found that really, really annoying. For a start:

what procedures? Like Sam, or any of them, had

actually been listening when the computer read

them out. That same voice was now suggesting,

oh so politely, that he get a move on.

'Honestly, Sam, we really don't have all day.

Literally. We have about six minutes,' said Joe Rivas.

The next voice Sam heard in his helmet was

Caitlin's.

'You okay, Sam?'

Of course he wasn't "okay". He was about to

climb down from a space shuttle and stand on the

Moon. The Moon. Big thing. In the sky. Up there!

Well not so "up there" at the moment, more sort

of "three metres down below and looking very

grey, dusty and a bit scary. A lot scary".

'I'm fine,' Sam somehow spoke back. 'It's just

a bit...'

'Yes, I perceive it is,' said another voice. That

was Michael. Only he would say "perceive" rather

than "know". That was Michael. He was the brainy

one who used long words whenever possible.

Sam tentatively put a foot on the ladder of the

shuttle and felt it hard beneath him. With a deep

breath he turned round so he faced the others and

began lowering himself down, from the relative

safety of the shuttle towards the surface of the

Moon.

He felt rather than saw other feet on the ladder

above him as he went down, their footsteps

seeming to be heavier and more urgent than his.

Obviously not as scared as him, then.

After what seemed like ages, but was probably

less than thirty seconds, Sam realised he was at the

bottom of the ladder and remembered what they'd

said earlier. 'Just let go' - the gravity on the Moon

meant they could safely drop down to the ground.

Easier said than done.

'Any chance you might let go?' said a voice in his

helmet. That was Savannah. Sam always blushed

when Savannah spoke directly to him. Thank

goodness she couldn't see that while he wore the

helmet. He obligingly let go and dropped a tiny

distance onto the surface of the Moon.

The Moon!

Earth's moon.

Big thing in the sky.

And he was standing on it.

Wow.

Savannah was suddenly standing beside him

and then one after another his other two friends,

Michael and Caitlin, joined them.

They stared at the ground, at the sky, the shuttle

and then across to Moonbase Laika.

'We're here,' Caitlin said in all their ears. 'We are

actually here, wow.'

Sam glanced back at the shuttle as the adults

started down the ladder.

Hsui Lan was first — the only person to have

her national flag, the red square with five gold

stars in the top left corner, representing the

Peoples' Republic of China, emblazoned on her

spacesuit, along with the logo from Catch A Star,

the international talent show she'd won last Easter.

That was everywhere — on her T-shirts, her trainers,

the shoulder bag in which she kept her tablet and

of course her tablet's wallpaper.

Behind her was Aaron Relevy, the Web Tube

sensation, who at the age of ten had so impressed

multiplatform companies with his self-broadcast

shows from his bedroom that they'd hired him on

the spot as a presenter and interviewer for 'youth'

programming. Now nineteen, he was already

considered a veteran of broadcasting the world

over — and was compere of Catch A Star. His

coming on the trip to the Moon was as exciting

as it was obvious to Sam. It wasn't possible to

imagine anything connected with Catch A Star

not featuring Aaron. Attached to the side of

his head at all times was a home-made webcam,

broadcasting everything he saw and heard back to

the production base in London, where it would

be cut into a series of reality shows for rapid

transmission. Aaron was famous the Web over for

his inserts where he'd show people how to build

things out of discarded rubbish. He built an Mp3

player, a mini-computer drive and a robot dog

from bits he found in a rubbish skip at the back of

an electronics shop. That one segment of his show

had brought him fame, fortune and the chance to

host anything he wanted. Catch A Star had been

his first choice.

However, it had been another of Aaron Relevy's

shows that had brought Sam and his other friends

to the Moon.

Four months ago the news had made the

announcement that World State was launching its

first Lunar Transport shuttle, affordable to all, for

regular trips to the Moon.

To mark this occasion, the webcast BPXtra

had run a competition for kids to design a mural

for the Chill-Out Area (whatever that was) on

Moonbase Laika. Split into two age categories, the

two winners of each bracket would not only see

their murals painted in the base, but they'd be the

first people to make the public trip in the shuttle,

Yerosha.

Sam and Savannah were the winners in the 13—

16 year old group, Caitlin and Michael were the

winners of the 9—12 group.

Aaron Relevy had made the announcement on

BPXtra one afternoon, and Sam had watched in

shock with his mum and dad as the results were

revealed.

'You're going to the Moon,' his dad had said

quietly. His mum might have just squealed in

excitement but had not really said anything that

Sam could remember clearly.

The whole street seemed to know within

minutes and before long, he was on the local news,

and the main page of the Lichfield Times website.

The producers of BPXtra had arrived the next

day, with forms for his parents to fill in, a list of

dates Sam would need to be at the old UNEXA

training centre in Wolverton to get ready for the

flight and a load of requests for appearances on

BPXtra, plus photo shoots with the other winners

for various websites.

As Sam stood on the surface of the Moon,

staring across the vast distance to Moonbase Laika,

he remembered one other thing that had happened.

He hadn't told anyone about this, including his

parents because at the time it had seemed so silly

and, well, mad really.

Sam had been in the BPXtra studio canteen

with Caitlin and Savannah, getting to know each

other and chatting about the training they were

doing to be ready for the spaceflight.

Sam had gone to a drinks machine, to get a can

of cola, when an old man had walked over.

He looked harmless enough and at first, Sam

had thought he was a cleaner or something like that

and smiled at him. The man had stopped and lent

on the drinks machine, glancing around, like he

was worried someone might see him. He stared at

Savannah and Caitlin, who were chatting together

about some app on Savannah's smartfone, and

then came down to Sam's level, eye to eye.

His face was lined, and his cheeks red and

blotchy. His hair was streaked grey and white,

scraggly and looked like it hadn't been washed in

weeks.

He took Sam by the shoulders. 'Listen to me.

I don't have much time - they are watching and

waiting. You be careful up there, young man,' he

said, with a heavy European accent — Polish or

Romanian maybe. Sam remembered that his breath

had been warm and stale, and Sam had flinched

slightly. 'Keep a look out for the red box. And the

space snakes. Because they'll be back for it.'

And the man stood up, shook Sam's hand firmly

and walked away, towards a door to somewhere

that Sam hadn't been. 'Tell no one you saw me or

they'll be after you too.' And then he closed his

eyes. 'One day, this will all be sorted and, finally,

it'll be time to go home,' he said, walking through

the door.

Sam never saw him again, and a few seconds

later another door had opened and Sam had met

Aaron Relevy and Hsui Lan for the first time as

they were escorted into the room by some BPXtra

staff.

He'd put it out of his mind until now. Because

as Sam stared at the dusty surface of the Moon

for the first time in his life, he was sure that he

saw something move out of the corner of his eye.

Maybe it was dust moved by their arrival, a delayed

reaction as the ripples of their movement slowly

spiralled the dust away. But to Sam it made him

think of the bizarre sideways movement snakes

made when they moved quickly to avoid human

contact.

Perhaps the old man had been right. Perhaps

the space snakes were back.

Whatever a space snake was.

Sym Sergei was a bit of a technical genius. Back

home in the Ukraine, his grandmother had

always said so. She loved her grandson and was

not afraid of coming forward and telling everyone

this. People in the street, in the shops, the local

bloggers, anyone who would listen.

'Born on these streets,' she'd say. 'And now

look at him. Trained in Moscow and America. By

the Americans. He's been to MIT even.'

Not that Sym was the first Ukrainian to have

done so, but for a grandmother brought up back in

the late twentieth century, he had some sympathy

with her excitement.

Sym was rather proud of himself, too - but he

never liked to display it outwardly But he had been

top of his class at MIT and had published enough

papers to make him highly sought after. Going to

the Moon had been a long-held ambition, having

grown up with his grandparents telling him about

all those Russian cosmonauts who had been the

first men in space. And when Moonbase Laika

(itself named after a Russian dog that had ventured

into space more than seventy years ago) had been

established by World State, it seemed that his

destiny lay up here.

When he'd got the news that World State had

accepted him, he went home, hugged his family,

collected his uniform from the World State supply

department and within a week was settling into his

small quarters on the Base. He shared them with a

Nigerian systems analyst called Hugo and the two

of them had hit it off straight away.

Sym was also an analyst, but whereas Hugo's

speciality was spreadsheets and records and

stuff, Sym's field was artificial intelligences and

programming.

As a result he had been put on the Chief of

Science's team, and was one of three people on

Moonbase Laika with access to HEART twenty-

four/seven.

That was a huge responsibility, as the Chief was

forever telling him.

HEART itself was a room at the centre of the

base, connected to the outer ring by three long

corridors. Between HEART, those corridors and

the main base was just empty space.

He remembered his first view of the Base

when his shuttle had landed on the Moon. It just

looked like a big dome with an outer ring, at the

base. But once inside, he learned that under the

dome, everything wasn't quite so uniform.

For a start there were three major areas,

Command Area, the Planetarium (with associated

laboratories) and the Mess - three large rooms

equidistant from one another — the ringed corridor

entering each room and exiting on the other side.

Along those corridors were storerooms,

sleeping quarters, small hydroponic labs to create

oxygen, and the filtration systems for food and

water recycling.

And then at the centre of everything was

HEART, and that was where Sym enjoyed spending

as much time as possible.

HEART had three functions. Firstly, it was the

literal nerve centre of Moonbase Laika — everything

was controlled from within it. Life support,

communications, all essential systems were adjusted

and maintained by HEART. Secondly, it was a

research device, constantly being updated with data

that the labs sent it, formulating and distributing

information and conclusions, satisfying World

States' requirements that Moonbase Laika be a

fully operational research station. And thirdly, it

was a records store — everything that had occurred

in the Base since it was first built right up to date

was stored here, accessed via a series of encrypted

codes that only the Commander and immediate

executive staff could access. Sym himself didn't

have that clearance, but nevertheless he was pleased

to be one of the HEART operational team. It was

a big responsibility but one he embraced.

HEART was a tall, cylindrical room, not

especially wide but it went straight up, higher than

anywhere else on the Moonbase. Small ladders

placed at irregular places enabled an operator to

reach a different level of controls. Right at the top,

sixty metres up, was the small alcove which only

the Chief of Science had clearance codes to go

into — that was where the nuclear power core was

accessed. Sym's job never required him to go much

above thirty metres but a few times he'd climbed

all the way up, just for the kick of looking back

down. It was a long drop, illuminated by the ever-

shifting pattern of lights and glows that HEART

gave off. It was almost like the room was breathing

in some strange way, as the pulsating lights took on

a rhythm if you stared at them long enough, and

the best way to observe that was from above.

Right now, Sym was entering a new series of

variables for HEART to consider. Recently a

number of crewmen had suffered from amnesia.

They'd either woken up in their beds unable to

remember how they got there, or would just

wander into the Mess or Command Area, dazed

after vanishing a few hours earlier.

No one had been able to explain how or why

this was happening, but it was concerning to

Godfried, the Chief of Security.

Sym was seeing if HEART could detect a

pattern to the disappearances, or the people

involved and uncover something that human eyes

had missed.

He was just entering the exact times and dates of

these occurrences when he heard the first sound,

a sort of scratching that came from somewhere

behind him. He ignored it, probably just some

new noise made by HEART's programmes as they

chittered and buzzed away. Most people forgot it

even made these noises after working there for a

while, it just became background white noise.

Then there it was again. The fact that he kept

hearing it made him realise it couldn't be HEART

or his mind would have filtered it out.

There! Again!

It wasn't inside HEART, but in Corridor 3, the

one that was closest to the laboratory areas back

in the Ring.

Putting down his tablet, Sym stuck his head

back out of HEART and into the corridor. It

took a few seconds for his eyes to adjust from

the multicoloured haze of HEART to the stark

greyness of the corridor.

He looked around. Nothing.

No wait, there it was again... Sym was going to

call out but then reckoned if anyone could even

hear him back in the Ring, they'd think he was mad.

He looked around and heard the noise again.

There. Down by the vent covering.

He dropped to the floor and put his face

close to the vent, trying to peer into the darkness.

He knew the vent system, it carried recycled air

throughout the base in a series of small thin tubes

that laced under the surface of the base. The tech

crews hated them if they went wrong, they were

barely wide enough for a man to get his arm into,

so all repairs and maintenance had to be done with

remote control devices small enough to travel

through the networks.

But that noise was definitely from in there. Was

it a remote? One that had been left down there?

Unlikely, the tech guys were usually pretty good at

tidying up after themselves. But...

Hissssssss.

What was that?

Hisssss.

Sym didn't like that at all. Was that air leaking?

He put his hand on the vent grille but felt no

pressure, so it wasn't a leak — thank God. If it had

been and it wasn't dealt within minutes, the whole

Moonbase could be compromised. They might all

die from asphyxiation as the air was sucked out of

the base and into the vacuum of the surface.

But if it wasn't a pressure leak, what could it be?

He reached into a pocket, took out a small

screwdriver and released the grille.

A strange smell wafted into his nostrils and he

coughed slightly.

That was weird.

With the grille gone, he could get fractionally

closer and look downwards slightly.

A flash of... a flash of silver? Something was

moving down there? But that really was mad!

Perhaps it was one of the remote-controlled

devices that had been left there, picking up a stray

signal and trying to move.

He reached into the tiny space with his hand,

tapping into the darkness, seeing if he could feel

what it was.

And that was when he felt a stab of pain in his

hand, and he whipped it back.

At first he assumed he'd caught the side of his

hand on something jagged, but goodness knew

what. As he looked at his hand, there wasn't a

scratch on it. Just two tiny marks, like pinpricks,

about two centimetres apart.

And slowly, as he stared at the marks, blobs of

his blood oozed from them.

He wiped the blood away and went to stand up,

to call a tech crew to deal with this. But he couldn't

get up. His legs simply wouldn't push up and he

realised he was lying on the floor, panicking.

And then darkness rushed into his mind. Sym's

eyes closed and he blacked out.

Sam turned and watched the last people to

jump out of the craft. They were an odd pair

in their mid-twenties. They worked for World

State and, when not in space suits, wore pristine

pale blue suits, shirts and shoes. Like a couple of

cartoon characters, they had fixed smiles that Sam

reckoned didn't reach their eyes. It was as if they

had been told to be as nice as pie to the kids but

really they would rather have been doing anything

else. Anywhere else. With anyone else.

Sam could never shake the feeling that

underneath their chirpy smiles and, 'hey wow kids,

we're just as excited as you are, yeah?' attitude,

twins Joe and Jo Rivas were hating every minute

of this experience.

And that made Sam smile, because he didn't like

either of them. They were, they explained, there

to 'protect the brand' which after Caitlin asked

for an explanation, they learned meant that World

State considered the Lunar Transport shuttle to

be something big and important. 'It's like when

you see a Batman movie or a James Bond film,' Jo

had smiled insincerely. A big on-going thing like

that, with logos and names that people recognise

the world over, that's a brand. And it's our job to

make sure that everyone enjoys the brand and

what happens doesn't spoil it, or disrespect it in

any way.'

'That makes it crystal clear,' Savannah had

sneered. 'Thanks for that.'

Michael had put his hand up, and successfully

caught Jo and Joe's attention. 'Yes?'

'Strictly speaking, Batman and James Bond

aren't 'brands' they are franchises,' he said. 'On-

going movie series like that are —'

And Joe had cut across him. 'Yes, well, it's all

very complicated I'm sure, but basically it means

we have to make sure that nothing on this trip to

the Moon reflects badly on either World State or,

more importantly, our new, exciting and thrilling

Lunar Transport shuttle program.'

Michael shrugged and shut up.

Now, they were all stood together at the airlock.

Sam recalled the schematics he'd seen on

Moonbase Laika. It was basically like a huge

bicycle wheel — the main area being the "wheel",

a long circular corridor. Along the way the wheel

had "bumps" - these were a series of important

rooms, which he remembered included things like

laboratories, canteens, and bigger places such as

the "Chill-out" Area and the famous Command

Area, which Michael had kept telling Sam he really

wanted to see. Also on the corridor, on either side,

were a series of cabins for the crew to sleep in.

Then, leading from the wheel, were three long

"spokes" that led to a central hub that stretched

right up, but Sam didn't know what that was - it

wasn't labelled on the schematics.

Excited by what was about to happen, what they

were all about to see, Sam smiled as Joe reached

forward and pressed a large green square on the

wall. Perhaps it was the doorbell, he thought.

Sure enough, a moment later, the outer door to

the airlock opened with a big hiss they could hear

through their suits before the vacuum of space

deadened the sound completely. They all filed in

and the door closed again.

'Four minutes,' Jo said in their helmets. Sam

knew that was how long it would take for the

cubicle they were in to be filled with oxygen, after

which they would be able to take off their suits.

It was a very slow four minutes in which no

one said very much. Aaron made a joke about the

decor (it was grey, a lot of grey) and Caitlin asked

if the World State was planning trips to Mars, to

which Jo laughed quickly and said Caitlin was a

very clever little girl for asking such a very clever

question. No actual answer though.

Sam could hear the hiss as the air seeped into the

cubicle and focussed on that, knowing that once

it stopped hissing, that meant it was just a further

minute from being time to get out of their suits.

It was actually a minute and a half before Jo

and Joe said they could remove their helmets,

presumably just making sure. After all, Sam

guessed, it wouldn't do their 'brand' much good

if they killed four kids and two web celebrities

before they'd even got through the door of the

Moonbase by suffocating them.

The inner door of the airlock opened when Joe

Rivas turned a huge plastic wheel in the centre of

the door. It reminded Sam of the ones he'd seen

on submarines in movies.

And then Sam and the others got their first

view of the interior of Moonbase Laika.

It was exactly the opposite of what Sam had

expected. He had imagined futuristic white

corridors, carpets, hexagonal designs on the walls,

maybe plants in red plastic vases.

But it looked nothing like the movies he'd

watched in preparation. This was the long curved

corridor - the 'wheel' he'd seen on the schematics,

but it was so... sterile.

Basically Moonbase Laika was mostly bland

steel and plastic girders holding pale blue squares

in place that acted like big building blocks. A Lego

Moonbase, he thought, where everything was

curved so you could only see the next few metres

ahead if you kept moving. Jo and Joe Rivas almost

seemed to melt into the walls, the blue of their

suits and the walls being identical. Branding, he

guessed.

They marched off down a corridor, a lit up

sign saying MESS and a red arrow pointing in the

direction they were going.

Sam turned to Savannah. 'Exciting, yeah?'

She nodded, her eyes glittering as she took it

all in.

Behind them, he could hear Aaron and Hsui

passing comment about the place, whilst just ahead,

Michael was walking between Jo and Joe. He was

pointing things out as they passed them, displaying

an amazing amount of knowledge about how this

was constructed, or why that was shaped the way

it was, or how the original plans for the Base had

changed because of this, that and the other. Sam

liked Michael because, although he rarely shut up,

he did know about stuff. Then there was the fact

that it also probably annoyed the Rivas twins, as he

clearly knew more than they did.

After a while they found themselves outside the

Mess, which Sam now realised meant 'canteen'.

'Okay people,' Joe Rivas started, then stopped.

'Umm, where are Aaron and Hsui?'

Sam realised that he hadn't noticed the web

stars weren't with them once they began walking

down the curving corridor. Joe threw his sister a

look that might have been saying 'Whose job was

it to keep an eye on these people?'.

She smiled at them. 'I expect they've seen

something interesting that we missed. I'll go find

them, while Joe takes you in for a... fizzy drink.'

'They probably won't have carbonated drinks

on Moonbase Laika,' Michael explained to her.

'The atmospheric displacement means that —'

'Whatever,' Jo smiled slightly tighter. 'You lot

go in and settle down, 'I'll find the other two.'

Sam and Michael however chose to follow her

— canteens were so boring, and Sam wasn't hungry.

He wanted to see more of this place, and knew

Michael was thinking the same way. They followed

Jo as she walked back down the corridor, retracing

the way they'd come but they didn't get very far

before voices floated towards them.

'So, what, you just started strumming a guitar

and making up songs about comic books?' said a

man's voice Sam hadn't heard before.

'That's right.' That was Aaron. 'Put it up on the

web and got four million hits in the first week.'

'Wow,' said the newcomer, as Aaron, Hsui

and he came around the curved corridor. 'I'm

impressed. And I'm not easily impressed. Unless

you can do that magic trick where you put a phone

inside a beer bottle now that is impressive — and I've never worked out how to do it.'

The newcomer was tall, dark-haired and quite

young although he wore an old-fashioned jacket

and bow tie. He waved his arms around when he

talked, wriggling his fingers all the time, too.

He glanced towards Sam, and presumably the

others, but to Sam it seemed that he was looking

straight at him with the most amazing blue eyes

that glistened and almost shone with... something

that made Sam grin.

'And you? Hsui was it? Loved your album, the

one with the picture of the swans on it.'

Hsui looked at him and shrugged. 'But... it's

not out yet. We haven't even revealed the cover to

anyone.'

The newcomer made an exaggerated "oh" look

with his face. 'Sorry,' he said. 'My mistake.'

'No, but the cover will have swans on it,' she

said. 'How did you know?'

The newcomer shrugged. 'Oh, lucky guess I

expect. You look like a swans kind of girl, and...

people... like swans I think. Hope. Imagine.

Probably.'

'Who are you?' Jo Rivas finally asked.

The newcomer produced a small wallet with

some kind of ID in it. He was too far away for

Sam to see what it said, but he heard the reply.

'Ministry of Moons and Moonbases. Very new.

Very... exclusive. Been sent up here to check up

on things, make sure everything is hunky dory and

that the, ummm, yes, the children here have a safe

and educational 'Your.' He smiled at them all again,

then leaned towards Jo. 'I assume education plays a

part in all this, it's not all ice cream and fizzy pop?'

With an exaggerated sigh, Michael started again.

'They can't have carbonated drinks because —'

'Yes, yes,' said the strange man. 'Atmospherics

and all that. Complete nonsense of course.

Provided the gravity is set correctly, nothing to

stop you having lemonade, cola and ginger beer till

your heart's content actually.' He was close enough

to nudge Michael's shoulder now, which he did

playfully. 'But ten out of ten for knowing about

such things. You are going to be very useful to me,

I reckon.' He looked at the rest of them. You all

are, I'm sure.' He then lent forward and pointed

back at the Rivas twins with his thumb. 'Except

I'm not sure about the blue suits here, they look a

bit grumpy to me.'

Joe Rivas stepped forward. 'Excuse me...?'

'Doctor,' he said. 'I'm the Doctor. From the

Ministry of -'

'I heard,' said Joe. 'Now look, I — what are you

doing?'

The Doctor had dropped to the floor and Sam

was surprised to see him tapping at a small air

vent between the wall and floor. He even seemed

to sniff it. Then it was as if he remembered the

others were there and he stopped sniffing, looked

up at everyone and grinned rather sheepishly.

'What were you saying?'

'That I didn't know you were going to be here,'

said Joe.

'Oh. Well, sorry. But that's not really my fault.

Should have been on your itinerary.'

'What itinerary?' asked Jo.

'Well, there you are then,' smiled the Doctor,

as if that solved everything. 'I was on the itinerary

you don't have. See how easily things fall apart

without itineraries and plans and stuff?'

Sam found himself grinning at the way this

Doctor managed to poke fun at the Rivas twins

without actually being rude to them.

'So come on then, let's get this party started,'

the Doctor said. 'Lead on.'

Jo Rivas raised her eyes towards the ceiling,

took a deep breath and then shrugged. 'This way,'

she sighed and they quickly joined the rest of the

group in the cafeteria.

Sam looked the Doctor up and down as they

re-entered, and he in turn looked down at Sam,

and winked. 'Hullo. Excited to be in outer space?'

Sam nodded. 'It's brilliant,' he said.

The Doctor grinned. 'You know what, it is, isn't

it? The most brilliant thing ever.'

'What were you doing, sniffing at that vent?'

'Oh,' said the Doctor. 'Oh, you noticed me

doing that.'

Sam shrugged. 'Kind of think we all did.'

The Doctor pointed down at another vent. 'Air

vents. For recycled air. Useful on a Moonbase.'

Sam agreed, adding, 'But why the sniffing?'

The Doctor stared at Sam, as if making his

mind up whether or not to tell him something.

Something Sam felt might be very important. 'I'm

testing a theory that's been bugging me ever since

I arrived here a couple of hours ago. Something

on the tip of my...'

'Tongue?'

'No,' replied the Doctor. 'Tip of my mind. She

can be so frustrating sometimes, never tells me

anything'

'She?' asked Sam.

'The TARDIS. My ship. She gets a bit moody

sometimes and presumably brought me back here

for a reason. No real idea what though. Have you?'

'Nope,' Sam said.

The Doctor wandered to a porthole in the wall,

but before following him, Sam dropped down to

the vent and gave it a sniff. Nothing weird there,

so perhaps - wait!

But... but that was impossible...

'Intriguing, isn't it?' asked the Doctor, without

actually looking at Sam.

Sam immediately scurried over to him, joining

the Doctor looking outside onto the expanse of

greyness that was the Moon's surface.

'What did the vent tell you?' he asked Sam, still

not looking at him.

'I... but... nah, it's stupid.'

The Doctor looked at Sam finally, with

something like disappointment on his face. 'Oh,'

he said. 'Oh, okay.'

Sam didn't want to disappoint this strange man.

'I heard... I heard sounds.'

'What sort of sounds?' the Doctor asked.

Sam shrugged. 'Just noises. Like something

moving. Breathing perhaps? But that's impossible.

Nothing can be in an air vent, can it?'

'On Moonbase Laika?' asked the Doctor. 'No,

no course not. Unless...'

'Unless what?'

'Unless there is, unless there is.'

Sam glanced back at the vent, slightly alarmed

by the Doctor's words.

Changing the subject, the Doctor drew Sam's

attention to the surface of the Moon again. 'What

do you see out there?' he asked.

Sam shrugged. 'Dust. The shuttle. Umm, more

dust. And Earth in space.'

'Amazing,' the Doctor said. 'Look over there,

that large crater, slightly deeper than the others.

That's Armstrong, named after the first human to

set foot here, on this satellite.'

Sam smiled. 'I bet it's great to have craters

named after you.'

The Doctor nodded. 'It's great the first few

hundred times. And the second few hundred. And

the... well, anyway, yes it never gets boring.'

'It must have been great to be Neil Armstrong.

"One small step for man..." and all that.' Sam

recalled seeing the footage on the web, all grey and

grainy but so awesome.

'Nice man, very smart and no ego,' the Doctor

said. We had blueberry muffins once. He will

always live on in history. So will Buzz Aldrin,

immortalised in all those photos that Armstrong

took. And Michael Collins, the first man to get

furthest away from Earth, the first to see the dark

side of the Moon. Fantastic achievements all

three. And all the others that followed, but those

three were the lunar pioneers that made this place

possible.' The Doctor sighed slightly, then pointed

again out of the window. 'Now, shall I tell you

what else I can see?'

Sam stared harder. There was nothing else to

see.

'Each grain of dust just sits there,' the Doctor

said, 'unmoving, untouched even by solar winds.

Just over there, protected by a small plastic dome,

is Neil Armstrong's footprint. And off to the left

is a crater where the UNIT cosmonauts that built

this base started measuring the Moon out. The

compass one of them dropped is still there, on its

end. And then, oh just look at that dust. You see

grey. I see colours, millions of different shades,

each grain of dust telling a story about history,

about the formation of the solar system, the

whole universe. Some of them have been telling

that story for millions of years, but no one ever

listens.' He paused, then looked back at Sam. 'I'm

just talking rubbish,' he said. Ignore me.'

But Sam was captivated. If he squinted he

was sure he could see silver and blue and green

rather than just grey in the dust. And he was

thinking about the footprint and the compass. 'It's

beautiful,' he breathed. 'It's the Moon!'

The Doctor grinned broadly. 'Oh I like you...

whoever you are.'

'Sam. Sam Miller.'

The Doctor shook his hand. 'Good to meet

you, Sam Miller. You and I are going to be good

mates, I reckon.'

The Doctor wandered over to the others and

Sam threw one last look outside onto the magical

surface of the Moon.

And then, just for a brief second, he thought

he saw something move. Just slightly, as if some

of that space dust that the Doctor had reckoned

was unmoving after all the centuries, shimmered

and shifted.

It was probably just light reflecting, Sam told

himself. After all, nothing was alive out there, was

it?

And again, Sam was suddenly thinking about

the old man's warning about Space Snakes. And

the vents, the noise, the breathing, the Doctor

sniffing.

He looked outside again, but everything was

still and untouched. Just as it had been forever.

Because nothing could live on the surface of

the Moon. Especially not snakes.

Sam and the others were drinking some strange

fruit drink in the cafe. It had little taste,

despite the fruits painted on the label and the

promises of nutrition, energy and vitamin C.

Sam chucked his into a box marked 'waste'

and nearly jumped out of his skin when it was

immediately all but sucked out of his hand by a

fierce gust of noisy wind.

'Ah,' said Michael. 'Vacuum disposal chutes.

They take the waste and shred it into powder,' he

smiled at Sam. 'Don't fall in after it.'

'I won't,' said Sam, gingerly moving away from

the chute.

Jo and Joe were tapping on their smartfones

and at first Sam thought they were playing a game,

but he soon realised they were messaging people.

Perhaps someone else on the base. Or maybe World

State HQ back on Earth. It occurred to Sam that

they might be checking up on the strange Doctor

from the Ministry of Moons and Moonbases,

when both he and Savannah walked into the cafe.

'Toilets are that way,' Savannah said, as if to

explain their absence.

'Vacuum?' asked Michael.

Savannah nodded slowly in a way that

suggested she hadn't been expecting toilets quite

so... ferocious.

Aaron and Caitlin were reading some notices

on the wall — some were electronic, others written

by hand and attached with some kind of sticky

plastic material.

'Apparently some of our murals are going in

here,' Caitlin said, frowning.

'Well, that's nice,' said Hsui. 'Brighten this place

up no end.'

'I wanted them to go in the Chill-Out Area,'

said Caitlin. 'That's what BPXtra promised.'

'No they didn't,' responded Jo Rivas, carefully

putting her own drinks carton in the waste, having

seen Sam's surprise earlier. 'They just hoped they

might be.'

'Still,' said the Doctor cheerily, looking at each

kid in turn. 'Still, could be worse. Could be the

toilets they put them in.'

Jo and Joe Rivas threw him a look as if to say

"great, that helps," then went back to their phones.

'Well,' the Doctor continued, 'shouldn't

someone from the base have met us by now?'

'Just what we're checking on,' muttered Joe.

Aaron sidled over to Hsui.

'You okay?' he asked.

The Chinese girl nodded and Sam noticed she

seemed to turn away slightly, staring briefly at the

tabletop, the ground and then finding a salt-shaker

quite interesting. Anything but catching Aaron's eye.

Sam smiled to himself. It had become obvious

to everyone recently that Aaron fancied Hsui and

Hsui fancied him back - but they were both too

shy to actually say anything to each other.

But the presenter was getting braver now it

seemed. Taney a quick wander?'

'Sounds like fun. 'I'll come with you,' said Sam.

'No,' said Aaron.

'Yes,' said Hsui at the same time.

'Ok,' said Aaron, shooting Sam a look that

immediately made Sam wish he'd not said a word

- and Sam realised that they probably wanted to be

alone. But it was too late to take it back now.

'Actually, no, you can't,' said Joe. 'Everyone stay

here, we can't go wandering around Moonbase

Laika like we own the place.'

'I thought you did,' said Caitlin. World State,

anyway. And you are from World State...'

'We work for World State,' Jo said. 'Not the

same as owning this place.'

'Too right,' said a new voice. They all turned to

look at the doorway. There was a man standing there,

in a one-piece red overall. A number of insignia

sewn into the chest area made him look very grand.

Which was a contrast to the man himself, who

looked not much older than Aaron. Both Joe Rivas

and the Doctor were probably older than him.

He had short blond hair, blue eyes and a

cheerful smile that made his eyes sparkle, as if they

were permanently watery.

'Hi there everyone,' he replied. 'I'm Godfried.'

He had a very slight accent that Sam tried to place.

European definitely. German, or maybe Dutch?

The Rivas twins were walking towards him,

hands outstretched ready to shake, with an

eagerness Sam hadn't seen in them before.

'Mr Christoffel,' Jo Rivas said. 'A pleasure. I'm

Jo. This is Joe.'

The newcomer nodded. 'Ah yes, we spoke over

webchat,' he said. 'Thank you for bringing the

children to Moonbase Laika. I hope the trip was

easy.'

'World State craft are always comfortable,' Joe

Rivas said, like it was something he'd learned to say

in these situations. 'It's what makes World State so

popular with travellers.'

Godfried Christoffel paused before answering.

'Of course,' he finally said.

'And now, we are anxious to head back to Earth

as soon as possible.'

The surprise from the other visitors and even

the Doctor was expressed vocally, loudly and all

at once.

'Okay, okay, okay,' Joe finally quietened

everyone down. 'We were never going to stay up

here with you. World State got you here and we'll

send another shuttle in three days to collect you.

Our job is done.' He smiled as if that was the best

news he'd ever heard. After all, you are perfectly

safe here, in a World State Moonbase, with Mr

Christoffel's crew. He's Chief of Security, you see.'

'Why do you need security on a Moonbase?'

asked Michael.

Jo Rivas smiled at Christoffel. 'This is Michael.

He asks a lot of questions.'

'Good ones,' the Doctor observed.

'And that's the Doctor. But presumably you've

met.'

Christoffel looked at the Doctor. 'No.'

'Of course we haven't,' the Doctor stood up

and walked over to him, flashing his strange little

pass at him. 'Ministry of Moons and Moonbases.

The Doctor. Hullo.' And he winked at Christoffel.

'And now we have. Met, that is. Marvellous.'

He wandered back to where he had been sitting

and put his feet up on a chair. 'Great Moonbase by

the way. I'll be giving the canteen ten out of ten in

my report, no problems.'

'Ministry of what?' asked the Chief of Security.

'I have never heard of it.'

'Course you haven't,' the Doctor said. 'Be a

bit silly if you had — we could hardly do surprise

inspections of all the Moonbases if you knew we

existed. And were visiting'

'We are the only Moonbase. Anywhere. Why is

there a Ministry of them?'

'Brand new,' the Doctor carried on. 'Only

launched last month. Do you like that? Launched

— like a space rocket. Deliberate choice of words,

you see, all to do with the PR. I'm sure the Rivas

family here can tell you all how important good PR

is. And branding. And franchising. And... anyway,

I'm sure your Commander will be expecting

me. Probably told to keep it all hush-hush from

everyone. Just ignore me, pretend I'm not here and

everything will be fine.'

Godfried Christoffel breathed out heavily and

turned back to the Rivas twins. Anyway, I'm sorry

but no, you can't go.'

'What?'

'Of course we can!' Jo Rivas looked at

her brother, as if he would magically change

Christoffel's mind.

'It's the sunspots,' Christoffel explained. 'The

course away from the Moon back home would

need to be a different trajectory to avoid them, but

because of the debris orbiting Earth and where the

pockets of safe passage are through them, they're

not aligned right now. You'll be here at least three

days, so I've cancelled the other shuttle and you

can all go home together after all.'

Sam took some pleasure in the obvious

discomfort Jo Rivas felt at this news, although he

wasn't sure why. Maybe it was because she had

been so keen to dump them on the Moon and

leave them here without actually telling anyone

that had been the plan.

Her brother, however, was more upset than

that. 'You don't understand, Chief, we have to get

away from here today.'

Christoffel shrugged. 'Sorry. Not going to

happen.'

'Oh dear,' said the Doctor with a wink to Sam

and the others. 'Looks like we're all in this together.

Shame World State didn't do something about all

that space junk orbiting Earth beforehand, eh?'

'Space junk?' asked Caitlin.

The Doctor beamed at her. 'Over the last sixty

odd years, since mankind started sending satellites

and spaceships and skylabs into space, the rockets

that get them there get abandoned, left to float

in Earth's atmosphere. After so many missions,

Earth is ringed by loads and loads of old debris

that hasn't burned up in the atmosphere yet. It's

hazardous and wasteful. Funny thing is, your planet

is all very good and conscientious when it comes

to recycling paper and stuff, but utterly pants at it

up here in outer space. Wait another hundred years

and you'll see you have the most awful reputation

with the Galactic Federation as mucky puppies

who don't clean up after yourselves.'

'''Galactic Federation"?' asked Hsui.

Sam was more taken by the Doctor's 'your

planet' comment, but before he could raise it,

the Doctor was on his feet, arms around Aaron

Relevy's shoulder, steering him out into the

corridor and towards the portholes. The others

slowly followed.

'See that, Aaron?'

'Yup. That's Earth.'

'Beautiful, isn't it?'

'Stunning,' said Hsui, and Sam noticed she was

finally standing as close to Aaron as possible. 'Isn't

it stunning?'

'Oh yes,' said the Doctor. But it's ringed by all

this awful rubbish that you can't see from here. It's

dangerous and will end up needing to be cleared, or

you'll find yourselves unable to go back and forth to

the Moon, Mars or wherever you want to go without

crashing into old Soyuz, Apollo or Guinevere brica-brac. Now, you could do yourself a lot of good

by setting up a nice special programme watched

by billions of kids all over Earth that tells them

how important it is to keep space tidy and maybe

those that grow up to be scientists and mission

controllers and astronauts will stop making such a

garbage patch of your atmosphere.'

'Explorers in space,' Hsui said. 'We should be

proud of everyone who has ever set foot up here.'

Aaron smiled at her. 'Absolutely.'

The Doctor paused for a second, then grinned

at them both, patted them both on the back and

somehow as he turned away had managed to link

their arms around each others' waists.

'I do so love international romance,' he

whispered quietly, so only Sam and Caitlin could

hear.

'Anyway,' Joe Rivas said, 'that has nothing to do

with World State and -'

'''Nothing to do with World State"?' echoed

the Doctor as he stood in front of Joe, towering

over him slightly, and fiddling with his bow tie.

'It has everything to do with World State. You

people should be leading the charge, not ignoring

it. That, Joseph Rivas, is why the Ministry sent

me. To check up on you, and your World State's

attitude to such things. And I have to say, I think

my Ministry are going to be very disappointed in

you.' He threw a look at Jo. 'Both of you.'

Joe swallowed hard and opened his mouth to

speak but all that came out was a high-pitched

squeak.

Jo Rivas stepped in and smiled at the Doctor.

'Of course, you're right, we apologise.' Then she

steered her brother back to a seat in the Mess.

Christoffel gave the Doctor a look that

suggested he enjoyed seeing the Rivas's taken down

a peg or two. 'Doctor, I'm glad the Ministry sent

you up — but I apologise that somewhere along

the way communications have got scrambled and

we were unaware you would be here. But I am

delighted that you are. It'll be a pleasure to have

you see how well we have adapted the old base

from its original use to what we have today.'

'What was it used for originally?' asked Hsui.

'I know,' said Michael proudly.

Christoffel smiled at him. 'Go ahead, Michael,

what do you think it was?'

Michael seemed to grow an inch or two as he

answered, pleased to be asked for his knowledge

rather than always having to force it on people.

'This base was set up in 2006 by the Unified

Intelligence Taskforce as a tracking station, keeping

an eye not just on Earth but out into space, a sort

of early warning system in case of alien invasion.'

Joe Rivas was back beside them in an instant,

eager to spin a bit of PR. 'Almost right. It was more

of a scientific research station, exploring new ways

to harness solar power, gravitational power and

possible mineral sources to replace those we were

running out of down on Earth — no one wants to

run out of oil before we have a substitute. Then in

2023, UNIT passed it over to World State, because

Private Enterprise could fund the research even

better. And that is us. And now, thanks to all of

you, this base will stop looking quite so militaristic

and more... comfortable and friendly. The people

who work here were all very excited by your

murals.' Joe looked at Christoffel. 'Maybe it's time

to meet the staff?'

For some reason everyone turned to look at the

Doctor, as if asking his permission or something.

He, however, was stood there, tapping away on

a device slightly larger than a Smartphone.

Christoffel put his hand to his pocket and then

reached out and took the device away from the

Doctor.

'Mine, I think,' he said, half-cross and half-

bemused. When exactly had the Doctor managed

to take it out of his pocket without him noticing?

'Interesting stuff,' the Doctor smiled.

'What is?' asked Christoffel.

'Oh, you know what I mean.' He gently poked

Christoffel in the chest. We need some answers,

don't we, Chief?'

The Doctor turned on his heel, hands wiggling

above his head. 'This way, I believe,' he said and

walked on.

Shaking his head, Christoffel suggested they all

follow him and prepare to meet the Commander

of Moonbase Laika. He started off at a bit of

a pace.

Sam and Caitlin found themselves alongside

the Doctor as he walked. He was looking around

at walls, doors, windows, signs and anything else,

muttering quietly and sometimes nodding.

After a few moments, Sam realised the Doctor

was addressing the two of them, but quietly. 'You

seem like intelligent children. For humans. Oh,

you don't mind being called children do you?

I'm never sure I get that right — at what point

you stop wanting to be called 'children', 'kids',

"offspring", "die kinder", "les enfants" -'

Sam could imagine this going on for a while

so he butted in. 'No, children is fine,' he said

quietly. 'What did you find out from the Chief's

smartphone thingie?'

The Doctor tapped the side of his nose.

'Things.'

'Like about the vents?' asked Sam.

'I like the way you think, Sam. Yes, possibly.

People have apparently been disappearing.'

Caitlin gasped.

'Oh, don't worry,' the Doctor carried on. 'They

come back, but with gaps in their memories. Just

a few hours here and there. Random people, no

obvious connection, no links.'

'Other than the fact they work here,' said Sam.

'Well, they'd have to,' said Caitlin. 'There's no

one else here except the Moonbase Laika staff.'

'And us,' the Doctor corrected.

'And... and maybe someone else?' offered up

Sam.

'Maybe,' the Doctor agreed. 'But let's not

worry about it.' Then he threw his arms around

their shoulders as they walked. 'So, intelligent little

offspring of humans, whose explanation did you

prefer? Michael's or Mr Rivas'?'

'Perhaps they were both right?' suggested Caitlin.

'Oh. Oh that's very good. Very observant. Well

done.' He smiled at Caitlin, and then turned to

Sam. 'Girls, eh. So boring, even when they're right.

No sense of adventure.'

'Oi!' said Caitlin. 'Girls are not boring. Girls

happen to be brill.'

'Oh. Sorry. Silly me.'

'But,' Sam said, 'she's right. They might both

be accurate. But I think Michael's was more...

interesting.'

'Oh, it was,' said the Doctor. 'And your World

State Brand Team Franchise-Holding PR Gurus

over there were a little too quick to give us the

approved spiel. Because there's one other thing

I want to know about this base that no one has

mentioned.'

'What's that?' asked Caitlin.

'Why did UNIT give it up?' the Doctor looked

up at the ceiling. 'I mean, they built it, funded it,

and used it for a long time. I'm very surprised that

they handed it over unless World State offered

them a lot of money.'

'World State does have a lot of money,' said

Michael, joining them. 'Couldn't help overhearing'

'So the question remains,' the Doctor carried

on, 'why? Why did UNIT sell it and why did World

State buy it from them?'

Sam took a deep breath. 'Maybe UNIT didn't

like the space snakes.'

The Doctor just shrugged.

'Possibly,' he said. 'Very possibly.'

Caitlin looked horrified and Michael snorted.

'Space snakes? What space snakes?'

'I have no idea at all,' the Doctor grinned. 'But

if Sam here thinks it might be because of the space

snakes, then we should find out if they really exist.'

'He's just made them up,' Caitlin said.

'Have you just made them up?' the Doctor asked.

Sam shook his head and told them a bit about

the old man he'd met in the BPXtra studio, and his

warning.

'See?' said the Doctor. 'Sounds like space snakes

to me.'

'He might have been mad,' said Savannah.

'Or drunk,' added Caitlin.

'Or lying.' That was Michael's contribution.

The Doctor nodded. 'He might also have been

giving Sam here a warning for a very good reason.

Best not ignore it, just in case. Let's see what the

Commander of this base has to say about space

snakes when we get there.'

'And if he doesn't believe us?'

The Doctor shrugged. 'Then we'll ask about

space cats, space bears, space badgers and even

space alpacas. I'll wear him down — I'm good at

that.'

'Okay everyone,' Godfried Christoffel called

back. 'You are now entering the main control area.

Please do not touch anything.'

Sam gave the Doctor a look.

'What?'

Caitlin gave him a similar look.

'You have only known me five minutes!' the

Doctor protested. 'Why do you think that applies

to me any more than you?'

Michael gave him the look.

'Oh, all right,' sulked the Doctor, and shoved

his hands into his trouser pockets. 'Happy now?'

Christoffel turned the wheel on the door and

swung it outwards, and everyone peered into the

Command Area.

It was a circular room, with a couple of doors

opposite where they stood now, on the far side.

Seated at a series of individual desks were men

and women working on 'touchscreen surfaces that

lit up as they worked, reflecting a variety of colours

and images on to their faces. Each of them wore

overalls in reds, blues and yellows.

On the right-hand side, the wall was just a

massive window, giving a fantastic view of the

surface of the Moon. Earth could be seen floating

in the pitch blackness of the starless sky. Sam was

staring at the vista.

'Wow,' he said. 'Just... wow...'

At which point a tall, dark woman in a green

overall stood up from behind a desk with lots of

touchscreen controls on it.

'Good afternoon everyone,' she said with a deep

American accent that made Sam think of a country

and western singer. 'Welcome to Moonbase Laika.

My name is Morrison Cann. I'm the Commander

and unless you listen very carefully to what I have

to say, every single one of you will be dead before

nightfall.'

And she smiled at them.

Sam looked around him, and nearly everyone

looked the same — mouths hanging open,

surprise or fear in their eyes.

Oh good, at least it wasn't just him then.

Except Michael. Michael, the brainbox of the

gang, he didn't seem worried.

Nor did the Doctor.

So if the Doctor wasn't frightened, there was

no need for Sam to be.

He took a deep breath and exhaled. Then he

smiled at Savannah. This made her relax a bit too.

Sam found he was smiling a bit more.

'Okaaaay,' said Joe Rivas. 'I'm sure Commander

Cann is joking...'

'Absolutely not,' the Commander replied in a

firm, matter-of-fact voice. And now I have your

attention, let me explain what I mean.' She tapped

a finger on a wall and a touchscreen glowed into

life. On it was a circular diagram that Sam realised

was a geometric map of Moonbase Laika.

'Moonbase Laika,' Cann said, 'is a working

station. And we expend a great deal of energy up

here, keeping the lights, life support, hydroponics

etc. all going. It's how we stay alive on a day-to-day

basis. But to achieve that, we have to have strict

energy saving routines.' She tapped a number of the

squares that Sam took to represent rooms on the

map. They immediately went red. 'These areas are

out of bounds after 9pm CET. So anything marked

in red, to preserve what we need, are what we call

dead zones. At night when this area is manned

by a skeleton staff, we shut down life support in

these areas. There's no admittance to them. Don't

try, don't think it's a challenge, or a game, it's not.

The areas have Hardinger Seals on them, but even

so, accidents do happen. If that accident involves

you, I won't be writing a sad letter to your parents

expressing my sadness at your instantaneous death,

I'll be writing to say how stupid you were and

deserved it because you didn't listen.'

'Seems harsh,' said Jo Rivas.

'It is harsh, Miss Rivas, because life on the Moon

is harsh. It's not like some science fiction movie —

in this place the slightest change in routine can kill.

The base is set up to support a certain number of

staff. Every time we have visitors, we have to adjust

the artificial oxygen supply, the gravity, the food

rations, everything. We can't just pop down to the

nearest 7-11 for supplies, you know.' She looked

at them all in turn. Sam felt her eyes burning into

him, almost challenging him to defy her. Sam had

no intention of doing so. 'You think I'm being

harsh? That's nothing to what happens if you die

here. I might tell your parents that your death was

instantaneous - it's not. It's painful, takes about

three minutes to go unconscious and before you

do so, your eyes, ears and skin will have ruptured

and you will be in agony And then you die.'

She reached over to a tall red-haired man, in a

red overall like Christoffel's, who was tapping some

numbers into a 'touchscreen at a console. 'Lew?'

The man passed her a pile of papers, barely

giving Sam's group a glance as he did so before

returning to whatever it was he was doing.

The Commander passed the papers to the Rivas

twins. 'Distribute these to your party please. It's a

print-out of dos and don'ts. A list of what rooms

everyone is sleeping in and places of interest to

go, places of danger to avoid. Again, I repeat, this

is not a challenge. I'm glad you guys are here, and

as one of the judges of the competition BPXtra

ran, I look forward to meeting you all individually

and having a laugh. But right now, it's important

you understand exactly how dangerous this place

is before you find out how great it is too.'

Nervously, Joe Rivas passed the papers around.

'Take one, pass it on,' he said.

Sam read his. Sure enough, it was a copy of

the map with each room numbered, and a list of

things not to do and places to go. The base seemed

very simple, each room clearly marked. The one

they were in at the moment was 1, the last room

on the list was 37.

There was one place on the wall map that wasn't

duplicated on the paper version. Instead it was just

marked by a series of criss-cross patterns and no

number.

'Excuse me,' he asked nervously.

Commander Cann stared at him, as if sizing

him up. 'It's Sam, isn't it?' she finally said.

Sam was taken aback by that, as he assumed

was everyone else. How did she know his name?

'I make it my job to read up on everyone World

State send up to visit my base,' she said, clearly

seeing his confusion.

'Err, right,' he said. 'I just wondered what this

room is.' He held the map up.

Cann again called to the red-haired man. He

looked across at the group, over the top of his

glasses, like a teacher trying to spot a troublemaker.

When he spoke, his voice bore no resemblance

to his size and stature — he had a soft, almost hard

to hear Welsh accent.

'Hi there. I'm Llewellyn Hughes, I'm the Chief

of Science on Moonbase Laika. And what the

young man has asked about is HEART.' He reached

out and tapped the wall and a screen appeared.

'This is HEART,' he continued. 'It's the nerve centre

of the base, the computer control. Everything that

exists here works because of HEART.'

'If it's a computer,' said Michael, 'shouldn't it

be called BRAIN?'

Hughes shrugged. 'Brains stop, but the body

keeps going. Hearts stop, that's it. Everything

withers and dies. Without HEART, this base is

dead. That's why no one goes near it. No one

except me and my immediate staff. Kindly stay

away from it.'

'Well,' said the Doctor, 'that's all very

straightforward. Whatever next?'

Commander Cann crossed to the big window.

'I'd like to show our talented group here where their

murals are going to end up across the Moonbase.'

All smiles now that she'd delivered her scary

pep talk, Cann began ushering everyone towards a

door at the rear of the room.

Sam and Savannah hung back a bit, staying

close to the Doctor because, somehow, Sam felt

like that was a good idea.

He watched as Cann and the others disappeared

into the corridor. There would be an opportunity

to catch up later. Right now, he wanted to spend

more time with the Doctor.

The Doctor and Chief Hughes stared at each

other for a moment.

'What if something happens to you, Chief

Hughes? Who looks after HEART then?'

The Chief of Science just smiled at him. 'I

make sure nothing ever does. But I appreciate your

concern, Mr...?'

'Doctor. With a "the".'

Hughes and a couple of other people in the

room momentarily stopped what they were doing

and looked at the Doctor. Aware that he was being

stared at, the Doctor coughed slightly and fiddled

with his shirt collar and shuffled the shoulders of

his jacket.

'Anyway,' the Doctor continued, 'just, you

know, be careful.' He ushered Savannah and Sam

forward. 'Come along young adult people-things,

let's catch up with the others.'

As they passed Godfried Christoffel, the young

Chief of Security tapped the Doctor's arm. 'Where

are you from again?'

'Ministry of Moons and Moonbases,' said Sam

automatically.

'Yes,' the Doctor agreed, 'Ministry of what my

mate Sam said.' The Doctor beamed at Sam. 'See,

mates. Told you.'

Sam grinned back.

Christoffel was less impressed. 'Why are you

really here, Doctor? Moonbase Laika is a very safe

and secure place.'

The Doctor regarded him carefully, then spun

around glancing at each and every person in the

Command Area, about twelve people in total.

Most were just working but Hughes and the others

who had caught his glance earlier were all intently

watching the Doctor.

It was almost, Sam reckoned, like a small group

of them knew more about the Doctor than anyone

had realised. Not that Sam was sure how. Or what

exactly they were worried by.

'What do you think can go wrong?' That was one

of the others, a middle-aged woman in a blue overall.

The Doctor seemed momentarily caught off-

guard. Then he shrugged. 'We're in space, and

against all that spaceness, this is a very small

building with frankly not much between us and

out there. All of which is controlled by a computer

system that can only be accessed by Chief Hughes.

And which, for some reason, UNIT were more

than happy to flog off to the first multinational

corporation to hit 'highest bidder' on eBay. I can

already think of eighty-five different scenarios of

varying levels of 'go wrongness' that make me

want to be somewhere else entirely. Oh, and my

mate Sam thinks there are space snakes here, too.'

'Snakes on a base?' laughed Hughes. 'There're

no such things as "space snakes"!'

The Doctor held his hands out and shrugged.

'Who knows? But I trust the instincts of a fourteen

year old boy over your safety protocols any day.'

'Oh?' said a slightly put-out Christoffel. 'And

why's that?'

The Doctor pointed behind them all.

Everyone, and by now absolutely everyone in

the room was listening to the Doctor, followed the

direction of his pointing finger.

Including Savannah and Sam.

The Doctor was pointing outside, through the

big picture window that dominated the far wall.

There, on the dusty surface of the Moon,

four shapes slithered towards the base and then

reared up, heads flicking back, yellow eyes glinting

malevolently.

'Ladies and gentlemen,' said the Doctor quietly,

and without any trace of told-you-so in his voice,

'I think those count as space snakes, don't you?'

'Welcome to the Planetarium,' said Commander

Cann proudly.

She had led the reduced gang in there after a

short walk around the Ring, saying she was taking

them somewhere special.

'What about Sam and Savannah?' Caitlin had

asked, but Commander Cann said they'd be along

in a moment. Although she also looked behind her

and grunted in annoyance. 'Well, they should be.

I'm sure Chief Llewellyn will chivvy them along'

The Planetarium was a massive domed room

with a ceiling that, according to the Commander,

slid open to reveal a screen onto which things

could be projected. Apparently it was meant to be

an astrophysics guide, so the teams on Moonbase

Laika could see how the stars moved and changed

over the years. It was able to project images from

over five hundred years' of recorded scientific

history to map the changes and help predict what

might happen in the future.

Commander Cann told the kids that the crew

also used it to show 3-D movies from Earth and it

was therefore known as the Chill-Out Area — this

was where their murals would be painted. Caitlin

was especially happy with this.

'But there are no walls,' Hsui said, 'the dome

comes right down...'

Commander Cann nodded. 'That's right, so

what's the only space to paint on?'

'The inside of the dome itself?' suggested

Caitlin.

'Correct. So when people come in here to relax,

to chill-out, the entire room, everything they can

see, will be covered by your beautiful designs.' The

Commander said. 'Except when the dome opens

to reveal the projector screen, and it'll all be in the

dark then anyway, your paintings will amuse and

delight everyone who comes in here.'

'Wow,' breathed Caitlin. 'That is so cool.'

Michael nodded excitedly. 'It is.'

'Want to see something cooler?' asked the

Commander. She produced a small remote from

a pocket and aimed it at the ceiling, clicking on it

as she did so. The inner dome split and started to

descend, revealing the massive screen beneath.

A second click and, as the lights went low, a

hologram of the solar system appeared on the

screen.

'Okay,' said Aaron, nudging Hsui gently. 'Now

even I think that's cool.'

Jo Rivas was still standing by the door, frowning.

'Everything okay?' asked her brother, quietly.

'Can you hear that?' she replied.

He listened. 'Nope, what?'

'I thought I could hear a noise.' She crouched

down, her hand near the grille of an air vent at the

base of the door where it met the floor. 'In here.'

Her brother shrugged. 'Probably just machinery.

It's an air vent. Air vents probably pump air. Stop

worrying about nothing. I'm more concerned that

we can't go home yet, we'll be stuck up here for

days. We do have other projects to work on, you

know. More important ones that playing nanny to

a bunch of geeky kids...'

Jo stopped him. 'Oh, just look at it this way,' she

said. 'How often to we get to stand on the Moon?'

'Well, yeah, there is that,' Joe agreed. 'I mean, it

is the Moon. That's kind of impressive.'

'Better than taking World State bigwigs around

Scunthorpe!'Jo laughed, then stopped. 'There it is

again. A hissing.'

She tried to wiggle her fingers through the grille

but couldn't get them in. 'Can't feel any air leaking,'

she said, relieved. Then gasped.

'What's up?' her brother asked.

Jo pulled her hand back — the tip of one finger

was bleeding slightly. 'Must have nicked it on

something sharp,' she said, sucking her finger to

get the blood off. 'Stupid Moonbase.'

Joe nudged her. 'Doesn't matter, we should

probably focus on the Commander. She might be

telling the kids about hissing ventilation tubes.'

'Oh, very funny,' his sister said, taking her finger

out of her mouth and shaking it.

'Hissss,' he joked.

The look he got in return suggested Jo Rivas

wasn't finding her twin very funny at all.

Instead, she went back to listening to

Commander Cann.

'Now then,' the Commander was saying,

pointing upwards, 'what's that?'

'Mars,' Michael said.

'Good. So if that's Mars and that's Earth and

that's Venus, what's that?'

Caitlin turned to Michael, assuming he'd know,

but he was silent, turning on his heel, counting the

planets displayed above them one after another.

Then he did it again. And again. 'That's impossible,'

he muttered. 'And more than that, it's silly.'

'Why "silly"?' asked Aaron.

'Because we know all the planets and planetoids

and dwarf-planets and satellites and asteroid fields

and... and that's silly.' Michael pointed up at a dull

grey ball by Mars, 'that simply shouldn't be there.'

Commander Cann smiled. 'And yet, there it is.'

'Is it a test?' wondered Caitlin. 'To see if

brainboxes like him know their stuff?'

Commander Cann shook her head. 'Nope,

that's an extrapolation of how the solar system

may have looked a few billion years ago. So can

you tell me what that planet is?'

Michael shrugged. 'No idea.'

'And none of the experts on Moonbase Laika

has either. It popped up some years back when

the Hubble Telescope was trained on this area of

space for a few days. We know it is very old and

no longer exists. Because of the time it takes light

to travel, like all things we see in space, it's actually

like time travel. We are seeing stars and moons and

planets as they were thousands of years ago.'

Michael was so excited. 'Are you saying that

Moonbase Laika's mission is to identify and

catalogue that new planet? Or I suppose we should

say that very old one?'

'Yes, that's one of the things we are doing here.'

Michael was almost beside himself with

excitement. 'But why now? Why has no one

seen it before? Oh wait, perhaps it's on a weird

orbit. If it was in almost perfect alignment with

Mars and significantly smaller, and our rotations

matched it, it would nearly always be invisible to

our telescopes because Mars would be in the way.

Maybe it exploded!'

'Why would it do that?' asked Hsui.

'Planets do sometimes, especially if they have

molten or ice volcanoes at their core. Maybe it

disintegrated millions of years ago. This moon, the

moons of Mars and maybe some of the asteroid

belt could be the remnants of it.'

For Hsui and presumably all the others this was

way beyond them, but they were enjoying Michael's

excitement, and finding it infectious.

Commander Cann was nodding, encouraging

him, and clearly enjoying swapping thoughts with

Michael, challenging him to think. 'Yes, good

theory. That is what we are trying to establish. Did

the Hubble get a reflection of the past, a unique

snapshot of something that universal gravity had

kept out of sight for centuries?'

'That's... that's brilliant,' Michael said. 'And

exciting. And I want to come and live here and

work here and find out!'

Commander Cann grinned. 'And hopefully

when you are older, you will, Michael. Because I

seriously doubt we'll know the answers in the next

decade or so, but hopefully in our lifetime. Maybe

we'll find some more mysteries and questions at

the same time. It would be boring if we knew

everything now. Science is a slow but fantastic art.'

'Where are the others?' asked Caitlin, looking

around.

'Other what?' Cann frowned at her. 'There

aren't any other planets yet.'

'No. The Rivas twins,' she explained.

Everyone looked around the Planetarium, but

the Brand Team were nowhere to be seen.

'Stay here a sec,' Commander Cann sighed,

bringing the lights back up as the dome closed over

the screen. 'I'll pop out and find them.' She smiled

at the group. 'You see, kids are as good as gold.

Pesky adults, can't be left alone for one minute.'

At which moment the loudest, most annoying

alarm sounded throughout the base. Commander

Cann started for the door, then turned back to the

kids. Aaron, you're oldest, you're in charge. No

one leaves this room till I or one of the Chiefs

comes back, okay?'

Aaron nodded. 'Okay.'

And she was gone.

They all stood staring at one another.

'I wonder what that alarm is for,' Michael said,

voicing what they were all thinking.

'Nothing good,' Hsui said, moving closer to

where the Rivas twins had been standing. 'Alarms

never are.'

She was suddenly aware of a strange noise at

her feet, down behind the grille - a sort of hissing...

The alarms had sounded because Godfried

Christoffel had hit a huge red screen on the wall

by the window. A shutter had then closed down

over the glass, or whatever glass-substitute it was,

blocking everyone's view of the space snakes.

All over the room, and Sam had assumed all

over the Moonbase, shutters had come down.

'Emergency protocol Uniform November

India Tango,' he shouted and everyone in the

room stopped what they were doing and went to

different stations.

The lighting in the room dropped to a dull red

and it took a few seconds for Sam's eyes to adjust

to the changes.

Sam realised the Doctor was at the centre of

everything, calmly issuing orders, and getting

people motivated. He and Savannah hung back,

not wanting to get in the way.

After a few moments, the alarm stopped and

Christoffel looked around the room. All stations

secured. General quarters established. Moonbase

Laika is secure and locked down.' From the doorway

came Commander Cann's voice, cutting across

the room, her tone daring anyone to be anything

less than on the ball. She'd obviously hurried back

from wherever she had left the others.

'I'm so glad,' she said. 'Now, who wants to tell

me why?'

As one, everyone in the room turned expectantly

to the Doctor.

'Oh,' he said. 'Oh, you think I know? Sorry, no,

not really. I mean other than the big space snakes

out on the surface of the Moon, I'm not sure what

the fuss is about.'

'Space snakes?'

'It's true, Commander,' said Llewellyn Hughes.

'We all saw them.'

'On the surface? The airless surface where

nothing can survive.'

'That's right,' said the Doctor. 'Well except

for the bits that aren't right. Which would be the

"where nothing can survive" line because clearly

something can.' He grinned at her. 'Be nice to

know how, wouldn't it?'

'It would indeed,' Cann said. 'Godfried?'

The Chief of Security shrugged. 'Never seen

anything like them, Commander.'

There was a general murmur in agreement

from the rest of the operatives as Cann scanned

the room.

'Tell me about the man who warned you.'

After a second, Sam realised the Doctor was

talking to him. Slowly, Sam told the brief story of

the man he had met and what he'd said.

'Not much to go on,' said Cann. 'A mad old

man and a young lad who may or may not be

exaggerating.'

'I'm not exaggerating,' said Sam crossly.

'Nevertheless, we need to know what those

things are and why they are here now,' said Hughes.

'Oh, they've been here a while I think,' the

Doctor said.

'What makes you say that?' asked Cann.

'Well, Sam's old man for starters. And his red

box. He said they'd been here before and that

would suggest to me that he's probably someone

who used to work on this Moonbase,' said the

Doctor. 'What do we know about why UNIT built

this base?'

'Research into deep space, warning and satellite

guidance,' said the older woman Sam had noticed

earlier.

'Thank you...?'

'Pauline,' she said. 'Pauline Brown. Medical

Station Grade Three.'

'Thank you, Nurse Pauline,' the Doctor smiled.

'Good summation, utterly wrong, but right I

suppose if you believe the hype.'

'I'm sorry?' Cann strode across the Area

towards him. 'Lew, can we have the lights back up?'

Immediately the red lighting gave way to the

more normal lighting, which seemed to make

everyone relax a bit.

'Still on alert,' Christoffel crisply reminded the

team. 'There's a bunch of space snakes outside.'

They weren't relaxed any more.

'Why aren't they trying harder to get in?' Hughes

asked.

The Doctor shrugged. 'Oh, I imagine they can

come and go as they please. Right now, they're

just letting us know they are there. Watching. And

waiting.'

'For what?' asked Cann.

The Doctor shrugged. 'No idea. But I reckon

if they want to get into this base, they wouldn't

have much trouble.'

'What do you mean?' Cann was astonished.

'This place is literally airtight. Everyone that comes

in or out is recorded, noted. Every change of air

pressure, every extra bit of water drunk. No one

can just walk through the airlocks and get in here.'

The Doctor threw an arm around Sam and

Savannah's shoulders. 'What do you two think?

What's the Commander missing in all this?'

Sam looked at Savannah, who shrugged, but

then her face lit up. 'They're snakes,' she said.

Sam got it too. 'They don't need to use the

doors. They're small and thin.'

Commander Cann still couldn't grasp it. 'What

do you mean? There's no other way in.'

The Doctor pointed to the floor. To a grille

over the air vents that dotted the room. And every

other room and corridor on Moonbase Laika.

'Your air vents are connected by what, tiny thin

tunnels, pumping recycled air around on regulated

timetables? So, in those downtimes you mentioned

earlier, in those areas humans don't go in at night,

imagine that something that can live out there, on

the surface of the Moon and burrow beneath it

isn't going to be stopped by a few plastic tubes,' the

Doctor turned to Christoffel. 'I'm guessing that

over the last few weeks you've noted unexpected

pressure drops, just for a few seconds at a time?

Too brief to register as people coming and going,

and so probably ignored — put down to a fault

in HEART's systems. But now — now we know

what they were. Our little silver friends out there -

coming and going.'

Cann stared at Christoffel. 'Chief?'

He shrugged. 'Yeah, tiny drops, just a second

here or there. Of course we never gave it much

thought. Initially we thought it was a steady leak,

but we thoroughly checked that out — there was

nothing.'

Commander Cann frowned and pointed at Sam

and Savannah as she spoke to Christoffel. 'You

didn't tell me? Didn't you think we should cancel

these guys' trip if the base wasn't 101% safe?'

'I bet he did. He's a good Chief of Security,'

smiled the Doctor. 'I bet that's exactly what you

did. Rather than worry the Commander over

something so trivial, I bet you mentioned it to

someone in engineering design at World State,

got them to check the schematics first, am I right?'

'I did. Word came back that World State thought

it would be bad PR to cancel.'

'Really? I wonder why... ah! Of course, I

should have realised earlier. Aaron Relevy - he has

a camera mounted on his baseball cap.' He turned

to Sam and Savannah. 'Permanently recording

everything?'

Sam reckoned so. 'Probably sends a feed back

to Earth, too.'

'Unless the snakes want to be seen,' he

murmured. 'I wonder if they're receiving now.'

The Doctor let this all sink in. 'They are clever and

cunning,' he said. 'There's a lot of intelligence in

those snakes. They want to be seen. Otherwise,

why say hello just now?'

'I don't understand,' said Savannah.

'Of course you don't,' smiled the Doctor 'Why

should you? At your age you should be thinking

about ponies and pop music and fashion and how

to date boys like Sam here.' He stopped and looked

at Sam. 'Well, she should!' he carried on,.'No,

Savannah, you shouldn't have to worry that when

UNIT was set up back in the 1970s, it needed

places to store things that it found, strange alien

things that it won in battle. Over the years they

stored stuff in a variety of places — vaults, forges,

Torchwoods even. But at the turn of the century,

they built themselves a nice little Moonbase up

here, not to keep a safe eye on Earth (although I'm

sure it helped) but somewhere safe to store stuff.

Space viruses; plastic eating nanites from Phophov

IV — oh, that was a battle and a half, believe me,

it's why the CD industry had to give way to MP3

downloads — plus guns, tanks and other assorted

weapons too dangerous to leave on Earth. Then

there's a Hopkiss Diamond — I had such fun

vibrating that to communicate with its owners

back on Jool. On their planet, 'Doctor' translated

as "Jeweller" - Jeweller to the Stars they named

me. I like that. So much less aggressive than 'the

Oncoming Storm' or 'Destroyer of Worlds' or

'Bow tie of Doom'. No one has ever really called

me that, by the way. Bow ties are never doom-y.

Well, rarely.' The Doctor spun around and looked

straight at Sam and Savannah. 'Oh, oh I wonder if

the RavnoPortal Beast of Birodonne is still locked

away here. Now him you'd love to see. All he ever

wanted to do was eat up little... no, no perhaps

you don't want to meet him actually. Bad move.

Bad RavnoPortal Beast of Birodonne. Baaaad.'

He addressed the Commander again. 'So, that's

the question. What happened to everything UNIT

used to have back up here — before World State so

mysteriously bought this place up? Did they take

it somewhere else, or did they leave it here? Did

World State inherit a nice empty Moonbase, or did

it come with a literal arsenal of lethal lethalness?

And if so, why? We're a few decades off war, the

Oil Apocalypse and the intellectual copyright battle

between T-Mat and iTeleport. Lots of questions

and no answers.'

'UNIT took everything as far as we know,'

Christoffel said. 'World State inherited nothing.'

'Well except for our serpentine chums,' said the

Doctor. And then, suddenly, he held up a hand.

'Shhhh. Listen.'

And everyone did so.

They could hear a tiny scrabbling sound, a faint

hissing.

The Doctor pointed to one of the vents. Then

another. And another.

'We have visitors,' he said. 'I'm not sure we

should invite them in...'

Back in the Planetarium, Hsui told Aaron

about the hissing she'd heard from below.

'Machinery?' she wondered.

'The projection equipment?' he suggested.

'A leak? Are we losing air?' Michael said, earning

himself a thump on the arm from Caitlin.

They had been warned about this more than

anything in their training back on Earth. Of all

the trials and tribulations that faced people living

on Moonbase Laika, the ever-present threat of

decompression was the most important to be

aware of. Even the smallest hole, smaller than a

pinprick, could kill everyone in seconds.

'We are not losing air,' Caitlin said.

'Well, actually...' started Michael, until Caitlin

cut him off again.

'We. Are. Not. Losing. Air. All right?' she said,

in a manner that dared Michael to argue.

He didn't.

It was then that they heard more sounds —

slithering and sliding noises, which definitely

seemed to come from beneath them.

Aaron took charge. He remembered what they

had been told during an emergency drill situation,

when training for this trip.

'Sit down,' said Aaron. 'Like they taught us, in

a circle.'

And everyone did. 'Is everyone okay?' Aaron

asked.

One by one they answered they were okay, if a

bit nervous.

'We stay here as long as possible as the

Commander asked. We don't leave the Planetarium

until someone comes back to find us. Or unless

we really need to. Basically, if something has gone

wrong, this may be the safest place to be.'

'What makes you say that?' Hsui asked.

'Because we're not dead yet,' Aaron replied grimly.

Suddenly, there was a massive hissing from

beneath them, and everyone cried out in surprise

as all the vent grilles, about six of them, flew away

from the walls, as if massive pressure had been

pushed against them.

'Everyone, get closer. Take someone's hand,'

Aaron ordered.

'I'm not holding Caitlin's hand,' yelled Michael.

'You are now,' Caitlin replied. 'Grow up!'

Aaron grabbed Hsui's hand and squeezed it

tightly. 'Form a chain,' he shouted. We are stronger

and safer if we are one.'

'Not necessarily,' Michael muttered. 'If the

place has sprung a leak, we all get dragged out into

space together if we're holding hands.'

'Not helping,' Aaron said.

'Just saying...'

Suddenly the room was filled with flashes of

silver!

Hsui screamed and Michael yelled.

Snakes!

The floor was swarming with slithering silver

snakes, dashing about, rearing up and hissing at

everyone.

Aaron's camera on his cap recorded it all —

the snakes raring up, spreading their hoods, dark

yellow eyes glinting. The yells and cries of the gang,

Aaron trying to keep them together, to protect

each other, and slowly trying to find a way towards

the door. He lead the gang bravely, but with each

turn they took, more snakes blocked their path.

After a few minutes, Aaron told them to stand

still.

'They aren't attacking us!' he shouted.

'Yet,' Michael added.

But Caitlin could see what Aaron meant. 'They

had a chance to, but they're not. They're just...

just...'

'Herding us,' Aaron said slowly, realising that

they were now standing right at the centre of the

room.

The snakes stopped moving but never took

their eyes off the gang.

'Why?' asked Hsui. 'Why don't they attack?'

Michael took a deep breath, trying to push

down his fear and start thinking rationally, like

the scientist Commander Cann had suggested he

might one day be.

'They want something,' he said. 'But not from us.'

'They are waiting,' Aaron agreed.

The Planetarium door swung open and

Godfried Christoffel rushed in with some of his

men. In their hands they clutched fire extinguishers,

which they activated, spraying the snakes with Co2

foam.

The snakes moved fast, but not towards any of

the humans. Back, back the way they had come,

into the vent tubes that lined the underside of the

Moonbase.

Immediately everyone leapt forward with

questions, but Christoffel shushed them. 'Let's get

you back to the others,' he said and his men led the

shaken but no longer scared gang away.

'Whose idea was sticking together, holding

hands, forming a chain?' Christoffel asked them as

they headed out.

'Aaron's,' Hsui said proudly.

'Good call,' Christoffel said. 'Most people

wouldn't think that quickly. Well done.'

Hsui was convinced Aaron grew a couple of

inches in pride at that.

Christoffel led them into another room,

a laboratory, called the Shaw Labs.

It smelled sterile and unwelcoming, but the

gang were relieved to see Sam, Savannah and the

Doctor there, setting out comfortable chairs, and

waving to each of them to sit.

Commander Cann was talking to the people

there, most of whom were from the Command

Area.

'Moonbase Laika is on lockdown. The crew

have locked themselves either in their cabins or in

the Mess Area. I have activated Emergency Code

Alpha — so the only people with roaming privileges

around the Moonbase are the people in this room.

That way, I know where everyone is. Moonbase

Laika is secure.'

'Apart from the Space Snakes,' said Hsui.

'They were all over the Planetarium,

Commander,' explained Christoffel. We fought

them off, they went back into the vents.'

The Commander blew air out of her cheeks.

'Doctor?'

'When they built Moonbase Laika,' the Doctor

was saying as he bustled around, 'they built it to

withstand... well, a lot. UNIT were good like that,

being militaristic, they tend to make everything as

impregnable as possible.'

'Could a nuclear warhead take it out?' Sam asked.

The Doctor gave him a look that suggested

probably not, but he didn't actually answer,

instead he waved an arm around the lab. 'This is

the most well-protected room other than HEART

according to Chief Hughes. Which makes sense

because labs on Moonbases are never the safest

areas, all those experiments and stuff that can go

"BOOM" at inconvenient times. It's best to make

sure nothing external can get in and, in the event

of chemical fires or whatever, nothing can get out.'

'And yes, just for the record, a nuclear warhead

could destroy this place. So could the nuclear

power core that makes it all work,' Commander

Cann added.

Chief Hughes nodded. 'In the event of an

emergency, from within HEART I can destroy -'

The Doctor put his fingers to his lips, making

a shushing sound. 'I don't think our young artists

need to know about that,' he said.

The Chief of Science nodded and sat down.

The Doctor smiled at all of them, visitors and

staff alike. 'So, I imagine you're wondering why

I've asked you here. Oh, always wanted to say that.

I sound like a proper academic.'

'Snakes?' suggested Michael.

'Indeed. Out there, on the surface, something

is alive and Space Snakes seems to be a good

description.'

'Scary metal ones.' That was Caitlin.

'Metal?' asked Savannah.

'Yeah, close up, it looked like they were made

of metal,' Caitlin replied.

'So a potentially interesting life form, if you

think about it.' The Doctor was up again, walking

around. 'Reptilian life forms enhanced by some

kind of living metal, maybe some kind of nano-

technology, maybe some kind of robot.'

'Or,' said Michael, 'snakes in spacesuits.'

Caitlin sniggered, despite her fear.

But the Doctor had stopped and was looking

squarely at Michael. Then he glanced up to Hughes,

Christoffel and the Commander.

'That, young man, is brilliant.' The Doctor

was now standing by Hughes. We simply didn't

consider that — snakes in spacesuits. We need suits

to live on or under the Moon, why shouldn't they?'

'Because they are snakes?' Hughes suggested.

'Alien snakes. That have just swarmed through this

base.'

'In spacesuits,' added Michael.

'Well, they've swarmed over one specific part

of it, the Planetarium,' said Aaron.

'Were they actually doing anything other than

slithering around?' asked the Doctor.

Aaron shrugged. 'Probably - I wasn't really

thinking about that.'

'No,' said the Doctor calmly, placing a hand on

Aaron's shoulder. 'No, of course you weren't. You

were saving everyone else's lives. Which is exactly

what you should have done.' And he turned to

look at Aaron. 'So thank you.'

'What for?' Aaron asked.

'Being brave. And brilliant.' He swung back to

the others. 'So, why swarm into the Planetarium,

the 'chill-out area' as I believe you call it? What's in

there of all places? I mean they can get through the

vent tubes, which gives them access to everywhere

on Moonbase Laika, so why go somewhere so

insignificant? Command Area? No. These labs?

No. Living quarters? Food halls? Nope, just the

big shiny recreation room.'

'Perhaps they wanted to watch a movie,' Caitlin

said, remembering what Commander Cann had

said before.

'Not likely,' the Commander muttered.

'Or,' said Michael slowly, 'perhaps they wanted

to see something else.'

Hsui clapped her hands. 'The planets, the

stars. We were looking at those before the alarm

started...'

'When we saw the snakes outside on the

surface,' Savannah added.

'As a distraction,' Sam added. 'We were busy

worrying about them, giving others time to get

into the Planetarium.'

'Absolutely,' the Doctor agreed. 'Clever snakes

in spacesuits. Oh, I love you kids. You all think

outside the box. Brilliant. You are all brilliant. Be

more brilliant - why would you want to see the

solar system? I mean it's pretty and all that, but

hardly unique.'

'What about that strange planet, the one we

didn't know whether it was old or new?' Michael

said to the Commander.

'Oooh, what new/old planet?' asked the

Doctor, and Commander Cann repeated to him

what she had told the others.

'And the Rivas twins?' asked Hsui.

'Oh yes, where are they?' The Doctor looked

around the room as if he'd only just noticed they

were missing. He even looked under a bench.

'Not really very likely, is it, Doctor,' he muttered

to himself. 'You'd see them hiding under a bench.

Gotta think straight.'

'They wandered off, and I couldn't find them

anywhere,' Commander Cann said. She turned to

Christoffel. 'Chief, you better get some people out

looking for them.'

The Doctor held a hand up. 'Hang on,' he

looked at Christoffel. 'Anyone else gone missing

recently?'

Christoffel tried not to glance at his Commander,

but everyone noticed.

'I'll take that as a yes,' the Doctor said.

'Not exactly,' said the Commander with a sigh.

'This is so not my best day,' she muttered. 'Over

the last couple of weeks, a number of staff have

gone missing for a short space of time but we

always find them eventually, usually in their cabins.

They have no memory of how they got there or

anything.'

The Doctor turned to Pauline Brown. 'Nurse

Pauline?'

She shrugged. 'Our best guess at first was some

kind of electric shock they were getting, creating

temporary amnesia. But we had no real answers.'

The Doctor smiled grimly at the Commander.

'Amnesiac staff. Power losses. Space Snakes in

silver spacesuits. You're right, it's just not your day

is it?'

'Thank you,' the Commander said. 'Anything

useful to add?'

'When was the last case, Nurse Pauline?'

She glanced at Llewellyn Hughes. 'This

morning, wasn't it? Sym?'

The Chief nodded in agreement. 'One of my

staff, doing routines in HEART, found himself in

the Mess shortly before you lot arrived.'

The Commander suddenly looked at the

Doctor.

'Oh, don't give me that 'Oh, so it's all your

fault' look, Commander, that gets boring very

quickly, with all the questions and the 'Where

were you when A happened to B'. Trust me, it's

nothing to do with me.'

'Oh great,' the Commander drawled. ''Trust

me' he says. Like I have any choice.'

'Can't the big computer help us?' the Doctor

asked. 'See if it can find any links between the

disappearances, the power losses and the arrival of

the Outer Space Reptile Race?'

Chief Hughes nodded 'I'll go program the

variables into HEART and see what it can suggest.'

'If HEART could scan under the Moon's

surface,' Michael suggested, 'that might tell us

where the Space Snakes are.'

'I like him,' the Doctor said. 'A lot. Chief?'

Hughes nodded, 'Worth a try.' The Welshman

looked at Michael. Want to come with me?'

Michael was standing beside him faster than

the others could blink!

'Stay in contact please,' the Doctor requested.

Christoffel opened a drawer, took out some

headsets and tossed them to Hughes.

'Thanks,' Hughes said and fitted one to Michael

and then to himself. 'We'll talk you through

everything,' he said.

Christoffel activated a large widescreen monitor

built into the wall and a split image of thin green

lines, one above the other, appeared. 'Speak,' he

said to Michael.

'What should I say... oh cool!'

On the screen as he'd spoken, the green line

became a waveform.

When Hughes spoke, the upper line did the

same. 'It's two way, Doctor. You just speak aloud

and we can hear you.'

'Magic,' the Doctor said.

'Science,' said Michael grinning at him.

'Get outta here,' the Doctor laughed. 'And

Chief?'

'Doctor?'

'Be careful. Both of you. We lost the Rivas

Twins. I don't want to lose you two too.'

'We'll be fine.'

He and Michael left the lab.

The Doctor turned to Aaron. 'Mr Relevy?'

'Doctor?'

'You've been in showbusiness a while, right?

Tell me about the camera on your cap.'

'Records via a bluetooth to a hard-drive

in my luggage. Broadcast quality digital visual

transmissions to Earth from up here are still a bit

in the future.'

'So my question is, is anything you see here

being transmitted back to World State right now?'

'No.'

Sam looked at him. 'But I thought...?'

'It's a fake, a lie.' Aaron said. 'Of sorts. I mean,

the footage will end up on Earth and will be shown,

but it's just being recorded and stored for now. I'm

meant to upload a package each night and then

transmit it back. They'll edit and broadcast.'

'But everyone on Earth thinks they're seeing

real time broadcasts?'

'Everyone knows there's a time delay — it's like

the old Big Brother live feeds from twenty years

ago, everyone knows it's not really live. But in this

case, the delay is more than a few moments. Just

in case...'

'In case what?' asked Savannah.

'In case it all goes wrong,' said Sam quietly. 'And

we all die.'

'Die?' said an alarmed Caitlin. 'They said

everything was safe up here. World State never

warned us about Space Snakes...'

'Well, good,' the Doctor cut across her. 'Your

BPXtra is going to witness a peaceful encounter

with charming space snakes in spacesuits,' he

smiled. 'Back in the Planetarium, I presume you

got the whole thing on camera?'

Aaron nodded. 'I guess so, yeah, must've.'

The Doctor threw an arm around his shoulder.

'Never stop recording, Mr Relevy. It could be very

important, historically speaking - it seems our

clever old snakes want witnesses to the history

being made up here.'

'Doctor?' Nurse Pauline indicated the readings

coming from the speaker sets worn by Hughes and

Michael.

'Can you hear us, Doctor?' asked Michael. The

green line wavered and changed in rhythm with his

voice.

'Absolutely, Michael. Where are you?'

'We're outside HEART,' Chief Hughes said.

'The Chief is entering the access codes so we

can get in.' Michael sounded excited and the green

lines bounced up and down even more, as if to

underline this.

There was a few seconds of silence.

'Guys?' said Commander Cann. There was no

response.

'What's going on?' Sam asked but the Doctor

hushed him.

More seconds of silence, although they could

hear both people breathing, the effect on the

waveforms was slight but reassuring.

The waveforms fluctuated at the noise of a

door opening, a complicated sounding series of

clicks and whirrs as, presumably, lots of small

parts opened, one at a time.

Sam looked around the room. Various people

in coloured coveralls looking concerned, including

Pauline and Christoffel. They were the only

Moonbase staff not locked safely in their cabins,

all being brave together during the emergency.

The Doctor stood completely still, eyes tightly

closed, listening intently.

Caitlin had sat on her hands to stop herself

fidgeting, clearly trying her best not to be scared.

And Savannah stared at the Doctor, as if hoping

he would have all the answers.

Sam was convinced he already had. He had

faith in the mysterious Doctor.

Next to Hsui was Aaron, whose hand slipped

casually into hers and gripped tightly.

She gripped back.

Still nothing.

'Chief?' the Doctor said suddenly. 'Report?'

His eyes snapped open.

Nothing.

'Lew?' Christoffel asked.

'Michael?' Savannah tried.

Nothing.

The waveforms were straight lines.

No sound. Not even breathing.

It was as if Michael and the Chief of Science

had simply vanished.

Realising that they had lost contact with Llewellyn

Hughes and Micheal Griffin, the Doctor and

Godfried Christoffel came up with another plan.

It sounded equally insane, Sam reckoned.

'We'll go after them, retrace their steps,' said

Christoffel.

'Um, no you won't,' said Commander Cann.

'Look, Plan A failed, and I'm feeling rather

responsible for that,' the Doctor snapped at her.

'And very responsible for Chief Hughes and young

Michael. So Plan B it is.'

Christoffel argued, 'First we have to know —'

'We do know,' snapped the Commander. 'Either

the snakes didn't want them getting into HEART,

or they've taken them over to do something specific

- which implies that the snakes can't actually get

into HEART itself. Maybe the energy it gives off

repels them....'

The Doctor was making a gesture with his arm,

wriggling it, doing a pretending-to-be-a-snake

thing, but in silence. Then he pointed straight

up, into the ceiling and made a mime that was

about long tubes and tunnels and he did more

arm wriggling.

Sam realised he meant that the snakes were

inside the base, within the slender tubes that

contained the power cables threaded throughout

the ceilings and floors of the base. A perfect way

to get around without being detected.

The Doctor put his hand to his ear and again

did the arm wriggling gesture. He meant the snakes

had overheard their conversations!

Sam watched as the Doctor finished his mime.

He slowed, stopped, as he, and Sam himself,

became aware that everyone in the lab had stopped

watching him and were now looking behind them.

To the doorway.

Standing there was a group of people.

Llewellyn Hughes. Michael Griffin. The Rivas

twins.

'Hullo,' said the Doctor. 'Love people who

know how to make an entrance.'

'I want to go home,' said Michael.

'Well, obviously,' said the Doctor. 'But I'm not

sure that right now we can —'

'I want to go home,' said Jo Rivas.

'Home is important,' said Joe.

'I'm sensing a theme,' said the Doctor.

'It couldn't be located,' said Hughes. 'Where is

the red box?'

'They've been taken over by the Space Snakes!'

said Caitlin.

'Haven't they just?' the Doctor murmured,

wandering towards the newcomers. 'Bite marks on

the hands, certainly.' He waved a hand in front of

Hughes's face, but got no reaction. 'Hullo?'

'We have to leave,' said Michael. 'Now. Go home.'

The Doctor stepped back. 'I think we got the

message. May I ask a question?'

All of them said "Yes" at the same time,

their heads turning in unison, like puppets being

controlled simultaneously.

The Doctor held his hands out. 'Are you

responsible for the power losses? The crew getting

amnesia?'

'Yes,' the four chorused in that same eerie way.

'Why?' Commander Cann asked

'We were... investigating your base,' replied Joe

Rivas alone. We want the red box.'

The Doctor paused, just for a brief second,

then burst into a jumble of hand waving and

walking in circles. 'Of course,' he said. 'Remember

I said this used to be a UNIT base, full of weapons

and alien artefacts and stuff? Well, the snakes are

knocking on your door, politely. Sort of politely

anyway. Trying to ask for help.'

'Help?' said Commander Cann.

'Yup, Commander. These are aliens,yeah? Aliens

who want something UNIT took, something you,

World State, whoever, inherited. "Can I have my

ball back please?" That sort of thing. Except 'ball'

could mean utterly lethal thermonuclear warhead,

or huge vial of devastating bubonic outer space

plague or perhaps even the massive RavnoPortal

Beast of Birodonne.' The Doctor turned back to

the mesmerised group. 'So, you don't want to hurt

anyone, but you make people want to go home.

That makes you rather antisocial Space Snakes in

spacesuits. Tell you what, why don't you talk to me

directly rather than through intermediaries. I get

very bored talking to monkeys when the organ-

grinder isn't far away. Don't want to talk to the

handymen when the gaffer is... anyway, I think

you get my point.'

He stood, waiting. Perhaps expecting a snake

(hopefully not a hundred) to flop out of the ceiling

to have a chat.

It didn't happen.

'Well, that was an anticlimax,' the Doctor said.

He pushed past the possessed people and into

the corridor. 'Plan B again, Mr Christoffel. Which

way to HEART please?'

The Commander was with him in a second.

'Again, I don't think that's wise. I don't think I can

afford to risk losing you too, Doctor.'

'Very flattering, yes and you're right, you

probably can't to afford to lose me because without

me, no one's going to get through to the snakes,

find out what's going on and free the minds of

those four people.' He poked Commander Cann's

shoulder. 'I'm pretty magnificent really and that's

why I want to keep on the move. If I stay around

here, they might start making more and more

hostages out of you lot and I'll achieve nothing.

This way, I may learn something useful with which

to negotiate.'

Sam and Savannah had followed them to the

door of the laboratory. 'Do you need anyone to

come with you?'

The Doctor thought about this. 'Savannah, I

want you two to see if you can help the Commander

find anything, anything in the records of this place

that might help us work out what they want.'

'They want a box,' Aaron called out.

'Lot of boxes on a Moonbase like this,' the

Commander said.

'Any red ones?' Hsui wondered.

'We should also consider why they took the

Rivas Twins,' the Doctor said. 'What do they want

with them?'

'Hostages?' suggested Christoffel.

The Doctor shook his head. 'Everything they've

done has had a reason, nothing has been random.'

He turned to Aaron and Hsui. World State, they

represent World State. Maybe it's something to

do with that. Can you remember either of them

carrying any red World State boxes?'

'I don't think so,' Hsui said. 'I didn't see them

with anything like that.'

'Their smartphones,' Aaron said, thinking

aloud. 'They were always on them — if they have

anything on any of us, I bet it'll be stored on their

phones.'

'Password protected, I bet,' said Hsui. 'They

seem the type to be security-minded.'

Aaron walked over to where the four people

were standing, motionless. Almost as if they had

been switched off.

Aaron reached into both Rivas's pockets and

took out their smartphones. 'Easy,' he said.

'Now what?' asked Hsui.

Aaron smiled. 'I'm a man who builds top of

the range tech from scrap metal. Getting past a

few encrypted passwords should be a doddle,' he

smiled. 'And those two are unlikely to use anything

too complicated in case they need to access one

another's phones in an emergency. Give me ten

minutes with a computer on this base and I can

sort it.'

'Good man,' said the Doctor. 'You do that,

Caitlin, look after Michael and the others. Can you

do that for me?'

Caitlin swallowed hard, then said, 'Of course,

Doctor.'

'Thank you,' and he winked at her. 'And Chief

Christoffel?'

'Doctor?'

'The snakes are coming in through the vent

grilles. Might be worth a round of blocking them

up for now, just till we get this sorted?'

Christoffel sighed. 'And if we don't?'

'Then perhaps the snakes will have killed us long

before we run out of clean air,' said Commander

Cann.

'Oh, if the snakes wanted us dead,' the Doctor

said, 'they could have smashed in the windows and

sucked us all to our doom ages ago. No, I'm not

getting hostility from them — they didn't hurt the

guys in the Planetarium or anyone they've knocked

out. No, no they need us alive and kicking'

'Okay,' said Commander Cann. 'Heaven knows

why, but I'm placing the safety of Moonbase Laika

in your hands, Doctor. Don't get us all killed.

Please.'

He smiled at her. 'I'll try not to.' He then nudged

Sam. 'Well Mr Miller?'

'Yes, Doctor?'

'Come with me?'

'Absolutely,' Sam grinned.

Together they wandered off down the corridor,

talking all the time.

'Are you scared, Sam?'

'A little,' Sam confessed. 'But it seems kind of

okay when you're around.'

The Doctor smiled. 'Glad to hear you say that.

Now let's consider what we know. Snakes on a

base. Searching for a box. Been everywhere they

can. Can't find it.'

'Apparently they saw something in the

Planetarium,' offered Sam.

'True, true - but what? Should we pop in there,

see if there's anywhere to hide a red box?'

Sam thought about it then said no. 'The

others were there and someone like Aaron would

remember if there was a red box — he's quite sharp.'

'He is indeed,' the Doctor agreed. 'So let's

forget the Planetarium for now. Which brings us

back to our current destination.'

'HEART?'

'HEART indeed. I think the Commander

is correct - the snakes keep taking over people

who work in there, but they clearly can't go inside

themselves. The energies it gives off can't be good

for them.'

Sam was counting the facts off on his fingers.

'So if the red box is inside HEART, how come no

one has ever seen it?'

The Doctor clapped his hands. 'Red box! Of

course, I've seen the red box!'

'Where?' asked Sam.

'Ten years ago, out on the surface of the Moon.

Lukas Minski - lovely man, bit preoccupied I

reckon. I thought I saw something move but

he dismissed it. But what if he encountered the

snakes right then? What if it's his red toolbox

we're looking for?'

Sam nodded caught up in the Doctor's

enthusiasm. 'So... so what's inside the box?' he asked.

'Not. A. Clue.' The Doctor stopped walking

and closed his eyes, probably trying to picture

what he saw ten years ago, Sam reckoned. 'Nope,

nothing. But I have something the snakes don't,'

he added as he started walking again. 'My secret

weapon, if you like.'

'A gun?'

'Okay, not a weapon. Bad choice of words.

Infinitely better than anything as yukky as a gun.'

'What is it then?' Sam wondered.

But the Doctor just winked and said nothing

else until they reached HEART.

The door was open, revealing the glowing

interior, just as Hughes and Michael had left it

when they were taken over by the Space Snakes.

Taking a deep breath, the Doctor walked in.

'Is it safe?' Sam asked.

'Unless you're an Outer Space Space Snake,

absolutely,' the Doctor waved him inside.

Sam looked around HEART. The walls glowed

with a variety of different colours, as if HEART

was alive, breathing. Beating silently.

It was warm. It smelled... odd.

'It's electrical.' The Doctor licked his finger and

held it up. 'Supercharging the air. That's probably

what can't be good for our reptile chums.'

'It's like just before a storm hits,' Sam said.

They looked around the HEART chamber. It

was no larger than an average living room, but it

was like a cylinder that went up quite a long way.

Sam couldn't actually see the top because the

flashing lights made everything up there too hazy

to focus on. 'Wow,' he said. 'This is amazing.'

A series of small ladders were fixed to the wall

and, like Sym Sergei had done some hours earlier,

the Doctor started climbing up into the heart of

HEART.

'Everything on Moonbase Laika is controlled

from here,' he called down to Sam. 'Everything.

That's an incredible feat of engineering. And a bit

stupid.'

'Why stupid?'

'Well obviously it's stupid. I mean, sabotage this

place and you wipe out the base.'

'More proof the snakes want us alive then,' Sam

said. 'If they took over the people that control this,

like Chief Hughes, they could have killed us easily.'

'I like the way you think, Sam,' the Doctor said,

waving his hand through the air. 'And now it's

secret weapon time.'

The Doctor produced something from his

inside pocket. It looked like a big pen or thin torch,

and it made a buzzing sound and glowed green

as he ran it over a number of HEART'S glowing

panels.

'What is it?' Sam asked.

'Say hullo to my Sonic Screwdriver,' the Doctor

said. 'An app for every occasion. Except wood.

And water. And it's not hot yet on deadlock seals.

But a good old microstate seal like this — easy-

peasy lemon squeezy.' Sudddenly one of the

panels stopped glowing and dropped forward. The

Doctor reached inside, and then smiled. 'Gotcha.

Oh, Lukas Minski, you clever man.'

He pulled out a red toolbox.

Sam grinned 'How did you know where to find it?'

'Set the Sonic to find an irregular energy pulse,

because I guessed Lukas had hidden it where no

one would look, and it was just blocking enough

of the energy for the Sonic to notice, but not

enough for Moonbase Laika's less sophisticated

instruments to detect.'

Sam was startled. '''Less sophisticated"? But

this place is state-of-the-art...'

The Doctor switched off his Sonic Screwdriver.

'And my little Sonic here makes this Moonbase

look like a prehistoric cave dwelling.' He patted

one of HEART'S panels. 'No disrespect intended.'

He jumped down and passed the red toolbox

to Sam. 'Please can you take this, I may have my

arms metaphorically full when we get back to the

lab and chat to the snakes.'

'Why?' asked Sam.

The Doctor shrugged. 'Because they want it

back.'

'So can't we give it to them?' asked Sam.

The Doctor paused. 'Maybe. Maybe not. I

rather want to know what is in it before I give it

back to them. They've not exactly been up-front

about this, and there's a lot of biting been going

on. I don't like bitey things as a rule.'

A new thought crossed Sam's mind, and he

looked at the red box. 'It's not a bomb is it?'

The Doctor stopped. 'Ooh. Ooh I hadn't

considered that. Maybe it is.'

'Sam frowned. 'Great. I'm carrying a bomb.'

'Well, we better get it away from all this energy

flying about in HEART then.' The Doctor strode

off. 'Come along, Sam. Time to talk to the snakes.'

Hsui, Caitlin and Savannah were grouped around

Michael. The Rivas twins and Chief Hughes

were stood slightly apart, but that was because they

had moved as the trio gathered around their friend.

'Michael?' Caitlin said quietly. 'Michael can you

hear us?'

'I want to go home,' said Michael dully. He was

just repeating it over and over again, as if it was the

only thing he could say.

'We all do,' Savannah said.

And then it hit Caitlin — something the Doctor

had said, about the whole 'going home' thing.

'Got it!' she said rather loudly.

Everyone in the laboratory stopped whatever

they were doing.

'What do you mean, Caitlin?' asked Commander

Cann.

Caitlin took a breath. She didn't want to muck

this up, in case no one took her seriously. She

wondered how the Doctor would get this across to

everyone. All these experienced people living on

the Moon, living in space and here she was, eleven

years old and maybe about to solve a mystery.

Or make a fool of herself.

Here goes nothing, she thought.

'It's not Michael and the others who want to go

home,' she started. 'The Space Snakes are talking

through them, yes? So it's them. The snakes are

telling us they want to go home.'

'Where is home?' the Commander wondered.

'That planet,' said Caitlin. 'The mysterious one

you and Michael were talking about earlier, in the

Planetarium. That's why they swarmed in there,

they wanted us to see that planet but we'd already

switched it off.' Caitlin smiled. It made sense to

her anyway.

Commander Cann grinned. 'You know what

guys, as theories go, I've not heard a better one.'

Caitlin almost blushed with pride at that. She'd

been right to speak up.

'And you won't hear a better one,' said a voice

from the door.

'Doctor!'

'Because Caitlin is utterly correct,' the Doctor

finished, as he carefully closed the laboratory door

behind him. Well, I don't know about the planet

obviously 'cos I haven't seen that but it sounds

plausible.'

Sam was holding the box out carefully. Old, red

and metallic, like the strange old man had said.

'You found it?' Chief Christoffel said. What is

it?'

'Hopefully not a bomb,' Sam muttered.

'You know what, I reckon it's just a box, Sam,'

the Doctor said, gently.

Sam wanted to feel convinced, but he wasn't

entirely. 'That man I met on Earth mentioned this

box to me. And he warned me about the snakes.

Why did he tell me?

'Wrong place, wrong time,' the Doctor said

gently. 'Could have been any of you who saw that

man, but it was you. Tell us again what happened.'

'He walked over, knelt down and warned me

about the snakes, told me to look out for a red box

and said goodbye.'

'Anything else?' prompted Commander Cann.

'We shook hands.' Sam remembered. 'Oh. Oh

and he said something weird as he left.'

'Yes?' the Doctor encouraged.

Sam frowned. 'I wasn't really listening at

the time, but now it seems appropriate. He said

something about it being time to go home.'

The Doctor nodded.

'But if the snakes want the box,' asked Caitlin.

'why didn't they get it themselves?'

Savannah laughed for the first time in ages.

Sam thought it was a nice sound. 'They're snakes,'

she said. 'No hands - how could they carry it from

where Sam found it?'

She smiled at him, proudly. Sam was about to

say that stricdy speaking the Doctor had found

it, but the Doctor nudged him. 'He was brilliant,

Savannah. I'm very proud of him.'

Sam was delighted to see Savannah grin more

broadly. And this time, Sam didn't blush.

'Talking of which — where was it?' asked

Christoffel. 'I mean, I have no idea what's going

on here, but it seems a reasonable question.'

'Inside HEART, locked away in a safe place

all those years ago. Where the power and energy

in HEART would keep whatever is inside it safe

I imagine,' the Doctor said. 'And because of the

energies inside HEART, they couldn't go in and

get it themselves. Well, and as Savannah said so

brilliantly, how were they going to get it out

anyway? They needed someone human to do that.'

'So why you?' asked Caitlin.

'Oh, it's not really about me,' the Doctor smiled.

'But a few years back, I was standing in a spacesuit,

next to a man called Lukas Minski, when I saw him

open it. So I can at least remember the access code.'

'You were there?' asked Commander Cann.

'Then where is he now? He needs to explain why

he put it in HEART.'

'He's on Earth,' said Sam. 'That's the man I saw;

wasn't it Doctor?'

Aaron was more concerned with the snakes.

'Okay, but why are they here? What do they want

now?'

'Remember what I said earlier, Aaron? To

lovely Pauline over there, about aliens turning up

and asking for their ball back? I think these guys

want their metaphorical ball back - whatever it is,

it's been locked inside a red metal toolbox for the

past decade.'

'Are you sure they should have it?' asked Hsui.

Suddenly, there was a terrible noise, like a

massive hammering on the doors of the laboratory.

And the walls. And the floors.

'Snakes,' said Christoffel.

'Space Snakes, in spacesuits,' added Savannah.

'Space Snakes in spacesuits who would very

much like to come in and get whatever's in the

box, I reckon,' said the Doctor.

'Should we let them in?' asked Caitlin.

'Oh yes,' said the Doctor. 'I think it's time we

finished this little mystery once and for all.'

He crossed to the door, turned the handle and

let them in.

Godfried Christoffel and the rest of the Moonbase

Laika staff, even Pauline Brown, formed a

protective circle around the children and the

other visitors.

'They aren't going to hurt anyone,' the Doctor

said, loudly enough for everyone to hear. 'Because

if they do, they'll annoy me. And that's their only

bargaining chip gone. Unhappy Doctor means

they don't get inside this box.'

Sam was astonished to see the snakes actually

slither backwards slightly.

He stared at them in horrified fascination. He

could see, now he was right up close to them and

not running away, they were indeed, just as Michael

had suggested earlier, wearing silver spacesuits

— clearly designed to survive in zero gravity, and

transparent globes covered their cobra-like heads,

some of which were open, presumably allowing

the snakes' jaws to bite anyone if they felt the

need. Other than that, they were normal snake-

sized, sleek, shiny and very hostile-looking. Their

eyes glowed a fierce luminous yellow, their heads

swayed from side to side as if sizing up their

enemies.

Sam hoped they weren't getting ready to rip

everyone's throats out.

The Doctor took the red toolbox from him and

slowly turned to face the Space Snakes.

Sam heard him make some very strange

noises, which seemed to come deep from within

his throat. They weren't words, they were noises,

breaths, staccato-style, but deep and quite scary.

For a second, Sam wondered if the snakes had

somehow taken him over too, but he seemed fine.

The snakes however, backed even further away,

except one, which came closer to the Doctor,

reared up and spread its cobra-like canopy even

further.

The leader, Sam guessed.

And then it made similar sounds back at the

Doctor.

'Absolutely,' the Doctor said normally again.

'And I'm afraid it hurts my throat to do it, so I'd

prefer to speak English, if that's okay?'

The snake made another guttural hiss.

Sam and the others just stared at the Doctor.

'You speak snake?' called Caitlin. Are you like

Harry Potter?'

'No,' the Doctor said. 'But I do speak Outer

Space Alien Snake. And I'm very different from

Harry Potter - although I did get locked in a

cupboard under the stairs when I was your age by

my uncle.'

'Cool.'

'Not especially. But I had been very naughty

and deserved it.'

'Doctor!' That was Commander Cann.

'Yes?'

'Space Snakes? Danger? Mesmerised people?'

'Oh yeah, sorry,' the Doctor shrugged. He

offered the box towards the Leader Snake. 'You

want this, but there are terms.'

The Leader Snake hissed angrily.

'Fine. No talky nicely, no boxy-woxy.'

Hiss.

'That's better. Release everyone from your

mental control. That's mean and unnecessary.'

Instantaneously Michael, the Rivas twins and

Chief Hughes staggered and started talking at

once, asking what was going on, where they were,

how they had come to be... and then they all yelled

'Snakes!' rather pointlessly.

'Shut up!' the Doctor ordered.

They did.

'Glad to have you all back,' he then said a bit

more kindly. 'Everyone okay?'

'I feel sick,' said Michael.

'To be expected,' the Doctor said. 'You'll be

fine in the morning.'

Commander Cann pushed her way through the

protective gang and joined the Doctor and Sam by

the Leader Snake.

'Look, sorry, but I demand to know what is

going on on my base, Doctor.'

'I don't think it's really your base, Commander.'

'Okay, World State's base.

'Not what I meant. They see this as their base.

Been here longer than World State. Longer than

UNIT and the base being built to be honest. How

many millions of years have you waited?'

The Leader Snake hissed.

'That long? Wow.'

The Doctor took out his Sonic Screwdriver. He

aimed it at the large widescreen monitor on the

laboratory wall, the one they'd seen Michael and

Chief Hughes's voice waveforms on earlier. The

screen lit up with a whine. 'Just tuning this into

your records, Commander, won't be a sec.'

The holographic solar system appeared upon it.

'That's what we saw earlier,' Michael said.

'Yeah, with that mysterious planet,' Hsui added.

'Which broke up about seventy million years

ago,' the Doctor said. 'Sending huge chunks of

itself swimming across the solar system, becoming

various satellites, moons and asteroids. All that

remained of a planet teeming with life. One day it

was there, the next — pop — and its gone.'

'You mean this moon is all that remains of it?'

asked Sam.

'Possibly. Or maybe the snakes just hitched a

lift on your moon a lot earlier, as it was drifting

through space. Either way, they've been here a

very long time.'

'And now all they want to do is get home?'

asked Sam. 'Can we help them?'

'Scary Space Snakes?' the Doctor said to him.

Sam looked at the snakes. 'Not so scary really.

Just... a little sad.'

'I like you, Sam, I really do,' said the Doctor.

'Commander Cann, this lad has a good attitude

about alien species. You should take him on staff.'

'He's only fourteen,' she said.

'Oh. Oh right. Well then, in a few years. He'll

be an asset.' The Doctor turned back to the Leader

Snake. 'But sorry, it's bad news for you guys. Your

home is gone. Has been for millions and millions

of years.'

The Leader Snake said nothing but Sam realised

he and the others were all looking towards the

computer screen, staring at the image on it.

The Doctor zapped it again, and the image

changed to a contemporary view of the solar

system. 'That's how it is now.'

Hiss.

'Possibly,' he said. 'But it would be a dangerous

journey. You might be better off staying local,

where you know you can survive. It would be a

waste to get out there and discover no one else

survived. Better to be the last of your people and

live, than die out there on a fruitless search for

others who may be long dead.'

Hiss.

'Because... because I've never encountered

any of them. Anywhere. And I know this system

pretty well. I'm not saying it's impossible, but I

wouldn't recommend it.'

Hiss.

'Well you just have to negotiate with the lovely

Commander here. She's very nice really.'

'Negotiate?' asked Commander Cann. 'I can't

speak snake!'

'Perspective, Commander! Communication is

a lost art with humans. Learn. Share this Moon,

this Moonbase with your neighbours.' The Doctor

looked at the Leader Snake. 'Give her a few minutes

to digest this.'

'World State's insurance won't cover all this!'

Joe Rivas suddenly yelled. 'Alien snakes and stuff!'

Everyone turned to look at him, including his

sister, in shock.

'Perspective,' the Doctor said again, shaking his

head.

Jo Rivas led her brother to a seat and sat him

down.

'I have to know,' the Doctor said, 'how much

World State knew about the snakes. Did they

expect this? Were you sent here to observe this?'

'We were sent here to make sure the stupid

kids didn't get sucked out of an airlock and show

them where their stupid murals were going to be

painted,' Joe Rivas spat angrily. 'Just 'cos we work

for the world's biggest multinational corporation,

stop assuming we are the enemy. We didn't ask to

be taken over by snakes.'

The Doctor looked at them both, but clearly

decided to believe him. Finally he put the red

toolbox down on the floor beside the snakes, who

immediately surrounded it.

'Don't. Touch.' The Doctor barked. 'You have

attacked this Moonbase, hurt the crew, siphoned

off power that, left unchecked could have been

dangerous to the humans. So before we get into

this, we need to work out a plan.'

'I want to know who this Lukas Minski is, and

what his connection to the snakes is,' said Chief

Christoffel. You know, as Security Chief. Sort of

thing I ought to know. Isn't it?'

The Doctor smiled. 'Let me tell you what I

reckon. Lukas faked his death, his disappearance,

because of whatever he put inside this toolbox.

He didn't want UNIT getting their hands on it

again. He was very brave to do what he did. Lukas

worked in a UNIT museum, dealing with things

that made him sad because they were often stolen.'

Hissss.

The doctor sighed and looked at the Leader

Snake. 'Well, okay, if you know the story

smartypants, why not tell it yourself instead of

leaving me to work it all out? Brilliantly, I have to

say. I'm on the right track, aren't I?'

Hissss.

'Oh right, well there you are then!' He turned to

the others. 'Solved.'

'Doctor?' said Commander Cann slowly.

'What now?'

'We don't understand snake?'

'Ah yes, right. Got you. Okay, very simple -

UNIT steal alien stuff. Providing it's not weaponry,

they put it in a museum, probably utterly unaware

of what it is. Enter Lukas Minski, not a rich man,

not terribly honest - he nicks something. Gets

fired, ends up working up here on the Moon, far

away from the authorities on Earth. Meets the

snakes - they're drawn to him because he's been

in contact with something they have been looking

for... for, well, a few thousand, possibly million

years - my snake translation is a bit rusty, but I'm

plumping for millions. Lukas talks to the snakes —'

'How?' asked Hsui.

'As I said, been in contact with something of

theirs. Quick bite on the hand and bingo, instant

communication between the two minds - Leader

Snake here, Lukas Minski there.'

The Doctor tapped a code in and the box

opened.

'How did you know the code?' Commander

Cann asked suspiciously.

Sam knew the answer. 'Because the Doctor

watched Lukas access it ten years ago.'

As many people as possible clustered round the

box, making sure they didn't tread on any snakes.

'A gold egg?' said Christoffel.

The Doctor nodded. 'A golden egg. Yes. A.

Golden. Egg.'

He looked around but no one seemed to

understand

And then Sam did. 'Snakes,' he said. 'Snakes

hatch from eggs.'

The Doctor beamed. 'That's not a weapon

or even a looted work of art. That's the egg of a

snake queen — or something similar anyway, could

be a king - but that's what that is. Give it to the

snakes and everyone can go home.'

'So Lukas made a deal with them,' Sam said

slowly, piecing it together. 'He would get them

their egg back.'

The Doctor nodded. 'So he went to Earth

secretly, got it back eventually — I doubt doing

that was entirely above the law — and brought it

to the Moon, but the snakes were gone by then.

Hiding. World State had moved in, all that change,

so they went to ground. Literally. So Lukas hid it in

the one place no one was working on, no one was

redesigning. HEART.'

Sam looked at the way the snakes were staring

at the egg, mesmerised.

'They just want to go home to a planet they

know is gone. How sad.'

'Doctor, you suggested they stay here, yeah?'

asked Commander Cann.

Hisss.

'They think you'll kill them,' the Doctor replied.

Commander Cann turned to the Leader

Snakes. 'Not going to happen. Ever. Whatever

has happened in the past, whatever mistakes were

made by the removal of your egg, I apologise on

behalf of, well, everyone. This is as much your

home as ours. Hell, it's more yours and you surely

can make use of the ninety percent we haven't

built a Moonbase on. Please, stay. It would be so

good to live and work together and learn about

one another.'

'Are you sure?' the Doctor said.

'Absolutely,' said the Commander. Why, aren't

you?'

The Doctor laughed, 'No, no I'm just delighted

to hear you say that.'

He passed the egg to the snakes who hissed

delightedly.

'Yes,' the Doctor said. 'Look after it better this

time and when it's ready to hatch, let the humans

know. It'll be a great moment for both your species.'

'Is the egg... okay?' asked Sam. 'I mean, it's

been in a toolbox for ten years.'

'It's been an egg on the Moon for a few million

years before that, I'm pretty sure it's designed to

cope.'

'When is it due to hatch?' Hughes asked.

The Doctor shrugged. 'Probably not in any of

your lifetimes.' He looked at Sam. 'Well, maybe

yours.'

Joe and Jo Rivas moved to Aaron. 'Did you

film all this?' they asked quietly. 'This is going to

be huge! You were attacked by the Space Snakes.

You'll be a superstar. Give World State that footage

and you'll be a star! You could end up the biggest

star on the planet!'

Aaron took the camera off his cap and pressed a

small switch. The bluetooth connection. 'Actually,

I've erased everything that's been shot so far this

trip,' he said quietly. 'No snakes, no attacks, no egg.

Nothing. Tomorrow, we can start again, with the

guys here and their murals and everything'

'Are you mad?' Joe Rivas exploded. 'The snake

footage is worth ten times some stupid pictures

drawn by kids.' He turned to Sam. 'No offence.'

'Lots taken, actually,' said Sam.

Jo Rivas was slightly less hysterical than her

brother. 'No back-ups, Aaron?'

'All erased. You're too late,' said Aaron, smiling.

'Can you imagine what would happen if World

State knew about the Space Snakes? They'd be up

here, dissecting them or something. The snakes

should stay the Moon's secret. That's why I've

erased it all.'

Joe Rivas shrugged. 'So? We'll tell them what

went on. They'll be up here to investigate in days.'

Aaron shrugged. 'But with no footage to back

up your claims, why would they believe you?'

'Because everyone here has seen them!' Joe

Rivas turned to the Moonbase Laika staff. You

all work for World State, it's your job to tell them

about the Space Snakes.'

'What Space Snakes?' asked Commander Cann.

'Anyone know anything about any Space Snakes?'

'Sounds like a mad old story to me,' said

Llewellyn Hughes.

'No idea what Mr Rivas is talking about,' said

Godfried Christoffel.

'Just as well,' the Doctor said. 'Look.'

All but one of the snakes had gone. Slithered

silently away, carrying the egg, their heritage.

The Leader Snake was still there, swaying

slightly as it seemed to weigh up its options.

Hisss.

It slithered away into the ventilation system

before anyone could move.

'They'll be in touch,' the Doctor said simply.

'Don't let them down.' He smiled at Commander

Cann. 'Don't let me down.'

Sam was at home, on Earth, in his back garden.

His parents were shopping and he was sat in the

sunshine, reading a book. About snakes.

The BPXtra shows had gone out. Moonbase

Laika was decorated with all the murals, Aaron

Relevy had struck a deal to regularly do shows

from the Moon about life up there, with Hsui as

a co-host and, Sam reckoned, a bit more. Caitlin,

Michael and especially Savannah had all stayed in

touch with him. Four friends for life.

He wondered if he'd ever see the Doctor again.

As if in answer, the doorbell rang and he went

to answer it.

The Doctor was there, grinning. 'Hullo, Sam,

glad I didn't miss you. Last time I knocked, you'd

got an engineering degree, married Savannah,

moved to Switzerland and this place was occupied

by a strange old lady with twelve cats.' He stopped.

'Probably shouldn't have told you that - future's a

funny old thing. Anyway, glad you're still here and

still fourteen years old. Got someone who wants

to say hullo.'

He moved aside and Sam could see an old man

standing by the gate.

It was the same old man he'd met before, back

at the BPXtra studios, although better dressed

now. He was even wearing a bow tie. Clearly he'd

been out shopping with the Doctor.

They shook hands and Lukas Minski started

to thank Sam for everything he'd done to get the

egg back to the snakes. 'You were magnificent

according to the Doctor. Very brave.'

The Doctor smiled. We're heading back to

Russia tomorrow — his family is so excited that

they are going to be reunited. And I pulled a few

strings with UNIT to clear his name.'

'After so many years, they thought I was dead.

Now I can see them again. My Annika will be all

grown up - I have missed so much of her life...'

'Anyway, we just wanted to say bye and thank

you,' the Doctor said.

'Hang on,' said Sam. 'When we were leaving

Moonbase Laika, Commander Cann gave me

something, in case we ever met again Mr Minski.'

Sam rushed up to his bedroom, pulled out a

box from under his bed and headed back down

again. He passed it over.

'She said you might want it.'

Frowning, Lukas opened the box.

It was a home-made moon buggy, next to a

card in Lukas's handwriting.

'Thank you,' Lukas said quietly. Better late

than never,' he said, and gave Sam a huge hug. 'For

everything.'

Lukas Minski walked back down the path,

holding the buggy tightly.

The Doctor shook Sam's hand. 'Goodbye

for now. I look forward to meeting you again, in

Switzerland. Something to do with solving the

Oil Apocalypse, I seem to recall. We make a great

team. Or did. Or will. Whatever.'

And he was gone.

But Sam knew that it wouldn't be the last time

he saw the Doctor.

Because life was good like that.