Doctor Who: Molten Heart

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Doctor Who: Molten Heart Page 10

by Una McCormack


  Ryan looked distraught.

  Basalt shook his head. “No, no, she won’t hurt them! She’s not a monster! She’s afraid, yes, afraid of new ideas, and afraid of taking risks. But she wouldn’t hurt anyone. She wants to protect us… but…” He sighed. “The time when that was possible is long past.”

  “Why don’t you tell us what you’ve found, Basalt?” said the Doctor.

  “To do that, we have to travel onwards,” he said. “Or, more precisely – upwards.”

  “Have you been to the surface?” the Doctor said.

  “No, no – not that far. I’m not sure it would be safe for us.” He eyed the friends. “How about you two?”

  “We’d most likely be fine,” the Doctor said. “I think you’d be fine too.”

  “Good,” Basalt said. He led them away from the shaft, and down towards what turned out to be a wide tunnel, carved through the rock. The Doctor ran her hand along the surface.

  “Smooth,” she said. “Machined.”

  “Impressive, isn’t it?” said Basalt. “Although not as impressive as what comes next.” He led them along the tunnel, and Ryan saw that there was track laid on the ground. “What do you make of this?”

  Ryan shrugged. “Looks like a railway to me.”

  Basalt jumped on his words. “A railway? Is that what you call it? Have you seen these things before? How are they made? What are they used for—?”

  “Dad…” said Ash, cutting him off.

  “Ah, yes, of course…” Basalt gave a sheepish smile. “But you’re familiar with these creations?”

  “Ryan comes from a place with a lot of this kind of thing about,” said the Doctor. “But even he would have to admit that a train tunnel this far under the surface of a planet is pretty impressive.”

  “There’s the Chunnel,” Ryan said.

  “Not this deep,” said the Doctor.

  “Oh, OK. Well, yeah, then I’m impressed. And if the trains run on time I’ll be even more impressed.”

  “A ‘train’,” said Basalt, trying out the word. “Interesting. I called it the runway.”

  “It’s a good name for it,” said the Doctor. “I like anything with ‘run’ in it!”

  They walked along a little further, until they came to what was, recognisably, a train, even if Ryan hadn’t seen this design before. “Now this is a very clever thing,” said Basalt, as they climbed into the carriage. “Moves about under its own power. Very helpful! I’ll make some of these, as soon as I get the chance…”

  “Where does it go?” said Ryan.

  “Where we need to be,” said Basalt. He set the machine in motion. It started slowly, and then began to gather pace.

  Ash was amazed, and a little frightened. “Is it safe to go this quickly?”

  “It hasn’t done any damage yet, so far as I’m aware,” said Basalt. “Or, I should say, it hasn’t done any further damage.”

  Ryan settled back in his seat comfortably. This expedition had needed more public transport, as far as he was concerned. He watched the tunnel shoot past. “I wonder how this all got built,” he said.

  The Doctor was waving her sonic about. “I’ve been wondering that too,” she said. “I think I have an idea… Hmm.”

  Basalt looked around the carriage in wonder. “So this, too, has come from a world far beyond our own…” He shook his head. “Marvellous. Marvellous.”

  “Where is everyone else?” said Ash. “There were more of you, weren’t there?”

  “Everyone got here safely,” said Basalt. “They’re all at the other shaft.”

  “Another shaft?” said the Doctor.

  “You’ll see when we get there. And you’ll see more,” he said. “There’s the fissure. That’s where most of them will be right now.”

  “The fissure?” said Ryan. “That doesn’t sound good.”

  “It’s not,” said Basalt. All his playfulness had disappeared. “It’s a calamity.”

  Yaz and Graham followed their guide as he led them down into the tunnels. As she hurried after him, it came to Yaz, suddenly, who their new friend was. The jet-black shell. The white swirls. “Graham,” she whispered. “I know who this is. I think we have a problem.”

  She put her hand on Graham’s arm, and they came to a standstill. Their guide looked round, momentarily confused at the delay, and then he smiled. “Ah. You’ve remembered who I am.” He sounded amused. “I believe I have one of those faces. People forget. It comes in handy, sometimes.”

  “You were at Quartz’s,” Yaz said, coldly. “You sat at the back and you didn’t speak much. Were you the one who gave us away?”

  “Oh yeah…” said Graham. “I remember you now!”

  Their guide shook his head. “It wasn’t me. I’m Onyx, by the way, if you’d like a name.”

  Yaz looked at the rock creature with deep suspicion. “So if it wasn’t you, who was it? And why do you have that?” She pointed to the emerald he was wearing.

  “This?” He patted the green stone. “Well, that’s because I’m in the Greenwatch, of course. And to answer your other question, I’m not sure. Probably Lazuli, although I wouldn’t be surprised to discover it was Silver. They liked Basalt’s ideas chiefly when there was no risk of them actually turning out to be true.”

  “And you believe Basalt?”

  “Of course,” said Onyx. “It’s not a question of belief, it’s a question of evidence. Basalt showed me what he knew, and how he knew it. Only a fool denies proof, even when it goes against custom.” He thought about that. “Especially when it goes against custom.” He gave his small, wry smile. “I really am a friend, you know.”

  “But you work for Emerald,” Yaz said, doggedly.

  “I keep an eye on Emerald,” he said. “Emerald’s problem is that she doesn’t understand how far Basalt’s ideas have gone. She thinks she’s managed to suppress them. But it’s not that easy. It’s a small sphere. Word gets around. I’m not the only one. And we can see what’s happening! The cracks above and all around. The hot pools, and the dried seas. Like I said – you can’t deny the evidence of your own eyes!” Onyx sighed. “I think that Emerald doesn’t know what to do, and that frightens her. Every stone has its flaw.”

  Yaz looked again around the tunnels. “You’re taking us back to Quartz’s house, aren’t you? This is a trick! Graham, we have to go!”

  “Please,” said Onyx, holding up his hands in a placatory manner. “I know exactly what happened. But Quartz can help. He just wants to talk to you—”

  “All right, Yaz,” Graham said. “I’ll go and talk to him. You wait here. If I’m not back in ten minutes – get on your way.”

  Yaz looked at Graham, and he had that stubborn look in his eye. The one that said he was going to do it, and that nothing would persuade him otherwise. Which meant that she was stuck. Of course she wasn’t going to let Graham go off into the lion’s den by himself. “OK. We go together, or not at all.” She stomped ahead, down the tunnel that led to Quartz’s room. “Let’s see what he has to say.”

  Quartz was waiting for them in the room where they had met the other friends of Basalt. He stood to greet them when they entered. “Yasmin, Graham – I owe you both an apology.”

  “For giving us up to Emerald?” Yaz shot back. “You’re right there!”

  “I had good reasons. Or so I thought,” Quartz said. “For a long time now, I’ve been trying to protect Basalt. He’s my very old and very dear friend. But…” He smiled. “He doesn’t care that everything he says has consequences! Emerald thought he might try to get away – she asked me to watch him. And I did, and every so often, I gave her news of him—”

  Yaz shook her head. “Your friend…”

  “—but not enough to put him at risk. And when he confided in me his plans for his expedition, I kept those secret, and I pretended to Emerald that he had told me nothing, and had gone away without my knowledge.”

  “And she believed you?” said Graham.

  “There are rea
sons she would.” Quartz looked down at his feet. “I’m not proud of them.”

  “You gave other people away to her, didn’t you?” said Yaz.

  Quartz nodded. “Including you and Graham,” he said. “When I knew that you and your friend the Doctor were going to follow Basalt, I thought this was my chance to get away at last. Find Basalt and help him. When we were cut off from the others…” He sighed. “I let Emerald take you two in order to protect the Doctor’s mission. If your friends can find Basalt, or find a way to prevent what’s happening…”

  “It saved you as well, though, didn’t it?” said Yaz.

  “That’s true,” said Quartz.

  “So why all this contrition now?”

  From the corner of the room, Onyx spoke. “A new crack has opened. It’s destroyed an entire settlement.”

  Yaz imagined the devastating effect of the steaming water. “I’m so sorry,” she said.

  “Emerald is trying to keep the news quiet,” Quartz said, “but she won’t be able to.”

  “Word gets out,” said Onyx, grimly. “As I say, it’s a small sphere, and getting smaller.”

  “I thought that with time I could persuade Emerald to change her mind… To listen, to start doing what was needed to save us all,” said Quartz.

  “But you’re running out of time,” said Graham.

  “And at the cost of many lives,” Quartz said. He looked heartbroken. “I was wrong. I let this go on for too long. And now I’m worried that we’re too late. That we won’t survive this. Yasmin, Graham – don’t hold everyone who lives in this poor sphere responsible for my mistakes. Please – help us!”

  “Well,” Graham said, turning to Yaz. “That is what we’re here for.”

  And Yaz sighed, and softened.

  The journey took several hours, by Ryan’s calculation, although he dozed for much of it. Every time he woke, it was to see the Doctor, sitting upright ahead of him, her sonic held out, studying, observing, learning. Ryan wondered, as he slipped back into sleep, if the Doctor ever slept, or whether there were long hours, when everyone around her was resting, which she had to fill. What did she do? Read? Learn a new instrument? Do mad experiments? Practise her snooker? How did you fill the hours, he wondered, when your hours were limitless? Somehow the Doctor managed it with a grin on her face.

  Ryan woke to find the train slowing down. There were lights up ahead. For a brief, sleepy moment he thought he was going to hear the announcement: “The next station will be… Sheffield… where this train will terminate. Alight here for connections to… Manchester Piccadilly, London St Pancras, the Moons of Jupiter, the Centre of the Earth, and… Doncaster…”

  “Wake up, Ryan,” said the Doctor, gently.

  The train stopped. They climbed out onto a narrow rocky platform, with a few crystal lanterns hanging around that Ryan recognised as the workmanship of Ash and Basalt’s people. He peered ahead. The tunnel, and the track, went on into the darkness. In the distance, he could hear a faint, persistent thrumming noise. He pointed up the track. “What’s up there?”

  “The runway goes some way further,” Basalt said. “And then it runs out. It looks like there were plans to go further – but it stops. We came this way months ago. You can imagine how marvellous we thought this all was – all this digging, these machines… Incredible!”

  “But?” said Ryan.

  “But they’ve come at a price.”

  “I think I can guess what that is,” said the Doctor. She held up her sonic, and took some readings. “We’re more or less above the place where those cracks are showing in the roof of the sphere.”

  Basalt nodded. “I thought so too.”

  The tunnel opened out to what was plainly intended to have been another platform, or a storage point for equipment. The ground, Ryan noticed, was damp, almost slick with water. “Doctor,” he said, pointing down. “Is that seawater?”

  She nodded. “I’m afraid so.”

  Ahead, there was marked activity. Ryan saw a handful of rock-people, some of them resting, some moving around rocks and stones, others carrying them towards the far end of the tunnel. When they caught sight of Basalt, they waved in greeting. One of them, small and with a pearly sheen, stopped work and hurried towards them.

  “Ash!” Pearl cried, in delight – and then saw the Doctor and Ryan. “Oh my.”

  “Hello,” said the Doctor, with a little wave. “We’re aliens.”

  “Nice ones though,” said Ryan.

  “You don’t look much like them,” Pearl said doubtfully. One or two of the others had come across to join them, greeting Ash with surprise and joy, and then eyeing the Doctor and Ryan. “No, you’re nothing like them at all!”

  “We come in all shapes and sizes,” said the Doctor.

  Basalt led them a short way down the platform. The thrumming noise was still going on; Ryan was starting to get a slight headache.

  Basalt stopped in front of a large pile of stones. “Here,” he said.

  “Ah,” said the Doctor, and rubbed her fingers against her temple.

  “Four of them,” Basalt said. “Dead when we arrived, long dead. We raised a cairn over them.”

  The Doctor nodded sadly. “And nobody else?”

  “Nobody else,” said Basalt. “They were very different from us – more like you, but even so, not the same… Smaller, bulkier. I think they had more fingers too. And they didn’t have…” He patted the top of his head.

  “Hair?” said Ryan.

  “Ah. That’s what it’s called,” said Basalt. “Is it part of you, or a covering?”

  “Part of us,” said the Doctor. “Look.” She rubbed her arm, making the hairs prickle up. “Same with Ryan’s lot too.”

  “Most interesting…” said Basalt.

  The Doctor frowned. “It’s odd, isn’t it? That the drilling is still going on.”

  “Ah!” said Ryan. “That’s what that noise is!”

  “Yes,” said the Doctor, “and it’s annoying me already, so I don’t know how you and your friends have put up with it for so long, Basalt.”

  “We’ve no choice, really,” said Basalt. “Come and see.”

  He led them towards the end of the tunnel, the noise got steadily more persistent. They stopped, and Ryan peered ahead. Crystal lanterns shed some light on what was happening. The machined, fashioned parts of the tunnel ended, almost abruptly, but the gaps in the rock did not. Some were as thin as a piece of paper; but others were wide enough for a person to move along. Some of Basalt’s people were heading down these, and Ash, with a nod from her father, headed that way, with Pearl.

  “All these cracks, they’re part of a larger fissure,” said Basalt. “If I were to guess, I’d say there’s a trench above here. The world… thins here.”

  The Doctor, her sonic aloft, was nodding. “Yes, yes – the sea is right above here.”

  “I thought so,” said Basalt. “Sea… a type of liquid, yes? The type that comes through the steaming pools?”

  “That’s it,” said the Doctor. “People like Ryan need water like that to live. But for you?” She shook her head. “Horrible stuff.”

  “My fear, Doctor, is that there is going to be a flood,” Basalt said.

  “Yes,” she said. “The fissure’s weakening, isn’t it?”

  Basalt nodded.

  “You realise that using that lift, and that railway might not be helping,” the Doctor said.

  “We’re fairly sparing,” Basalt said. “But we have to plug the gaps somehow…”

  “Yes,” she said. “But it’s worse than that. The seawater’s pretty warm down here – thermal currents – but as more and more filters past, the fissure gets weaker, and the water gets colder. Extreme cold meeting extreme hot equals bad. Very bad. Sooner or later, it’s going to crack open the sphere of the world down there like a spoon hitting an eggshell.” She batted the palm of one hand against the fist of another. “And then – water plus lava. Horrible. A steam explosion. It will tear this worl
d apart.”

  “I was afraid that was what was going to happen,” Basalt. “I suppose it’s gratifying to have support for my hypothesis, but I can’t exactly call it good news.”

  Suddenly, from up in one of the larger fissures, there was a yell, and Ash came running out, Pearl not far behind her. “Quick!” yelled Pearl, to the others. “We need help up here!” Two or three others, hearing her cry, grabbed up stones and tools and dashed up the tunnel. Ryan saw a thin trickle of water on the ground.

  Ash came to join them. Basalt took her hand. “Are you all right?”

  “Yes,” she said. She was covered in splashes which were making her arms blister. “Dad, that’s not going to hold for much longer—”

  “I know,” he said. He turned to the Doctor. “What shall we do?

  “You’ve done an amazing job so far,” the Doctor said. “Unfamiliar tools, unfamiliar materials. Shoring up that fissure. You’ve saved lives, I bet.”

  “But it isn’t going to be enough,” Basalt said. “Is it?”

  “No,” she said. “We’ve got to get to the surface.”

  Basalt shook his head. “We can’t risk that. We can’t risk weakening the fissure suddenly – it might go. I can’t allow it.”

  “Basalt,” said the Doctor, “this is desperate. You’ve been waiting for help to come – well I’m that help! Emerald isn’t going to give in. Whatever’s been happening on the surface is causing this, and it’s not going to stop unless someone goes out there and makes it stop. You can’t do it. But Ryan and I can. That’s why we’re here!”

  “Dad,” said Ash. “She knows what she’s doing.”

  “Glad I’ve given that impression,” said the Doctor, with a grin.

  “All right,” Basalt said. “I think there’s a way up to the surface. There’s another shaft, with some of those lifting devices—”

  “Could one of those take us to the surface?” said the Doctor.

  “It might,” said Basalt. “I don’t know. We haven’t risked it.”

  “We’ve gotta try, haven’t we?” said Ryan.

  The Doctor patted his arm. “That’s the kind of thinking I like. All right, Basalt – take us to your lifts.”

 

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