Doctor Who - The Wheel of Ice

by Stephen Baxter

  ‘Just hear me out. I won’t go unprotected. I’ll take a small team, we’ll secure one of the surface facilities. At least I can start some kind of assay of the work we’re going to have to do to get up and running again. My risk. Bootstrap will take full responsibility for my own safety and the guards’. Call it a delaying tactic. This will get me off your back, and the shareholders off mine. What do you say?’

  Luis was thinking quickly. ‘I’ll accompany you.’

  Florian stared at him. ‘What? Why? What use are you?’

  Luis laughed at her coarse rudeness. ‘I’ll monitor the safety of your operatives. And yours, in fact. And I’ll make sure you protect the site.’

  ‘The science, you mean.’

  ‘Conserving mankind’s common heritage in the face of despoilment or exploitation is part of the mandate of the PEC—’

  ‘Save me the speech. Fine. You can make the coffee.’ She glared around, challenging. ‘Anything else? Are we done here?’

  And Jo Laws, feeling uncomfortably that events were slipping once more out of her control, could only nod her head.

  38

  FIRST LED THEM along a twisting natural shaft, deeper into the heart of the ice moon. The air remained fresh enough, Zoe thought, but the scattering of light globes, automatically placed from the human facilities on the surface, became sparse, and at last dwindled altogether. The explorers had lamps on their skinsuits and Sonia passed out handheld torches from her backpack, but from now on the light would always be uncertain.

  It was a sign that they were penetrating deeper than any human had gone before them. Zoe’s mood swung between dread and wonder.

  The shaft at last opened out into another chamber. This was at least as large as the Dolls’ nest, but it was empty of Dolls. Instead it was crammed with a clutter of equipment. Zoe’s first impression was of a mass of wires and cables and coils, struts, panels, and glinting glassware, especially mirrors. As she turned around she saw the reflection of her own lights wink back at her from a dozen surfaces embedded in the shadowy junk. This was evidently equipment taken from the Wheel and the mine. She saw registration numbers, a few Bootstrap logos, even clunky black-letter labels:

  HAZARDOUS WASTE

  RESIDENTIAL FIVE INFIRMARY

  DO NOT REMOVE

  The ozone stink was sharp in here, Zoe noticed.

  First stood amid these heaps of junk, quietly waiting.

  Sonia gazed around in wonder. ‘So this was where it all ended up. All the stuff that went missing.’

  Phee said, ‘The stuff you accused people like my brother Sam of pinching.’

  ‘All right, Phee. We were wrong. It was these Blue Dolls all the time. And it wasn’t sabotage, was it?’

  ‘Not intentional,’ the Doctor said. ‘Though machines are going to fail if you rip out enough of their vital components. No, the Dolls didn’t want to cause damage, not at first anyhow; what they wanted was the parts themselves.’

  ‘To be brought here, to this great – midden,’ Zoe said. ‘What’s it all for, Doctor? Is it just collected at random?’

  ‘Like the nest of a bower bird,’ Phee said. She seemed embarrassed. ‘I read about that at school.’

  ‘Oh, I think there’s more intent to it than that,’ the Doctor said. He walked forward to a kind of cabinet, about the size and shape of the TARDIS in fact, roughly constructed of plastic panels. ‘I’m surprised you don’t see the pattern, Zoe.’

  ‘Well, I’m sorry, I’m sure.’ But, looking around, Zoe did start to see a kind of design. ‘It’s all glass tubing, and electrical wiring, and coils – and look, is this a dynamo? It’s like a giant electrical engine.’

  ‘Yes.’ The Doctor fiddled with a rough door that sealed the cabinet. When he pulled it free it fell apart in his hands; it had only been panels loosely taped together. ‘Oops. But if I’m right, what we’ll find in here—’ He leaned forward, his suit lights bright, and there was a blaze of reflected light.

  Zoe glanced inside the cabinet, over his shoulder. Mirrors! Rank upon rank of them, carefully positioned to face each other, so that each way she looked she saw copies of herself heading off into infinity.

  ‘Let me see that.’ Sonia pushed past them. ‘Why, there’s a fortune in pilfered optics in here, from astronomical telescopes, laser installations…’ Phee poked her head in curiously.

  The Doctor drew Zoe aside, and whispered, ‘Best if the others don’t overhear. Zoe, I think what we’re seeing in this rather pathetic contraption is the end result of the placing of the allohistorical lure.’

  ‘Which drew humans here.’

  ‘Yes. Because whatever lies within this moon wanted humans to make something for it. Or at least bring the component parts. And this is the Blue Dolls’ rather muddled attempt to satisfy those wishes. They raided the mine workings and the Wheel, to build – this!’

  ‘But what is it, Doctor?’

  ‘I can tell you what it’s meant to be. Whoever ordered this thing built wants to send a message, to future or past – and, possibly, to escape there. This is a time machine, Zoe. A time machine.’

  Zoe was bewildered by this revelation. A greater difference between the hugely advanced technology of the TARDIS and this heap of pack-rat junk could hardly be imagined. A time machine!

  But the Doctor ought to know, and, as she listened to his hasty explanation, she found herself growing convinced.

  ‘Mirrors reflect light, after all, and light is integral to the theory of time travel. Indeed, travelling faster than light is equivalent to travelling in time! And then if you cross-wire that, so to speak, to a generator of static electricity – if like poles repel, Zoe, perhaps like images can be made to repel, and then sent off to wherever you want them to go…’

  ‘I’m remembering my quantum gravity theory,’ she said slowly. ‘Yes, there is something plausible about that. If you mounted the mirrors on insulating bases, if your static charges were strong enough—’

  ‘That’s the idea. But you do need the right trace elements in your apparatus. You may not succeed in making a time machine, but you might manage to hook a flaw in time to your gadget, and I’ve seen that done before, by two gentlemen of the Victorian era, one misguided, the other a greedy fool. And their reward was a visit from a Dalek!’

  ‘Oh. And so is this the source of the Relative Continuum Displacement Zone that attracted the TARDIS?’

  ‘I suspect so, Zoe. We probably detected a trial run – enough to pass a bit or two of information, no more. Much greater energies would need to be applied to give it a credible chance of working. But of course it would not work, not as intended. This is such a muddle – as if the designer was having trouble remembering what it wanted to build, and the Dolls were having trouble understanding its instructions… At best it would cause a continuum implosion. I strongly suspect something similar happened fifty million years ago, wrecking the original moon and creating the rings of Saturn – and now we’re all set for another go. It would be the end of what’s left of this little moon at last, and the Wheel. And if the disruption spread – well, there’s an awful lot of mass-energy wrapped up in Saturn.’

  ‘My word. You’re talking about a solar-system-wide disaster!’

  ‘Quite possibly.’

  ‘Well, what must we do to stop it?’

  He grinned. ‘That’s my girl! Straight to the point. What we must do, Zoe, is go a bit deeper into this strange little moon—’

  ‘Find out whoever ordered this machine to be built.’

  ‘And ask it not to throw that switch! Now come on, the others are growing suspicious of our mutterings…’

  So they passed on from the chamber of the time machine.

  As it turned out they had to walk only a little further, only a little deeper, before they came at last to the heart of the moon.

  And confronted what brooded there.

  39

  THERE WAS A hole in the moon. The gravity, always very low, was now all but non-existent.
They were very close to the moon’s mass centre, Zoe realised. And here they found a chamber, roughly spherical – a big one, perhaps a hundred metres across. A curtain of light, spectral, shimmering, hung before the rough entrance to the chamber. The lights from their torches played across the space beyond.

  And by the torches’ uncertain glow she glimpsed something in the heart of the chamber, resting on the ice. Something shapeless. Worn. Old. That was her first impression. Yet not inert. Something, if not alive, then functional.

  The Blue Doll called First walked forward, neither boldly nor nervously. He stood before the big central mass, upright, hands by his sides, very like an attentive child – or a statue of a child, for he was utterly still.

  The Doctor grunted. ‘I wonder what’s passing between them. Come on – there’s no use standing here. Let’s have our calling cards ready. Help me unfurl the display flags. We can at least show it our intention is to communicate, even if all we’re managing is to reflect back its own thoughts to it. And, Phee, your amulet—’

  ‘I have it, Doctor.’ The girl was holding it out before her. She looked scared but determined.

  Zoe smiled at Phee. ‘You’ll always remember this day,’ she whispered. ‘This moment. Wonderful, isn’t it?’

  Phee stared. ‘Is it always like this for you?’

  ‘Pretty much,’ Zoe said.

  ‘If you two are quite done gossiping?’ Irascibly, nervously, the Doctor took a step forward. In his right hand he held out a flag across which ring arcs rippled, his left arm was folded protectively against his upper chest, and he walked almost sideways on, hesitant, as if approaching an unexploded bomb. Yet his voice was calm, reassuring.

  ‘Hello. I’m the Doctor… Can you hear me? I suspect, well, I hope, that you can hear my words through the sense organs of your creature, the one who calls himself First. Perhaps you can sense our physical presence too that way. Even if you can’t make much sense of what we say just yet. Just remember: we come in peace. We’ve come to help you, not harm you…’

  There was no obvious response from the entity.

  Zoe tapped her sensor readouts. ‘Doctor. Another flood of neutrinos. I’m sure it’s some kind of signal. But I can’t read it.’

  ‘Of course not. You can barely detect neutrinos with a box that size, let alone decode any signal.’

  ‘And, Doctor. Look at the flags!’

  It was the live feed sent down from space by MMAC that had caught her attention. The rings, the fine detail – they were rippling.

  And now, though she saw no movement in the entity, Zoe sensed a deep disturbance, a rolling, the thrashing of some restless giant.

  Sonia grabbed her stomach. ‘That’s making me ill.’

  The Doctor ignored her. ‘Quick, Zoe. See if you can run any kind of pattern recognition on the signals in the rings, and the neutrino flow if you can.’

  She hurried to comply, and kicked in analysis suites. But she asked, ‘Pattern recognition? Based on what?’

  He glanced around to make sure Phee and Sonia couldn’t see, then dug into his pocket and slipped her a small glass bar. ‘Here. This contains an extract from the TARDIS’s translation system, a database of all known galactic languages and their families. I thought it might come in handy today.’

  ‘I thought Sonia had the TARDIS impounded—’

  He pressed a finger to his lips. Hush. ‘See if there’s any match between this creature’s patchy signals and any known language – well, there must be, the database is rather comprehensive.’

  ‘How do I plug it in?’

  The Doctor sighed. ‘Give it back.’ He just tucked the slip into her backpack. ‘Now. Is it working?’

  She hastily improvised a readout subroutine. Results began to scroll across a tiny screen on her control box. ‘Why, yes. There is a correlation with a group of languages known as the Talsiccian Family. A mostly extinct group, it says here, very ancient. There isn’t enough data in the signal for a full match—’

  ‘Yes, yes. We’re going to have to set up a much more comprehensive data capture system. We need a decent neutrino detector for a start. But for now – what’s it saying, Zoe?’

  ‘Two things. One is a name – I think. More a definition. A compound of two concepts. It is an ark. And it is an archive.’

  ‘Ark – archive. Arkive! Its mission is preservation, then. Well, it would be. What else?’

  ‘I’ll let it tell you itself.’ She tapped a button on her console, and a synthesised voice, loud as a brass gong, filled the chamber with words:

  RESILIENCE

  REMEMBRANCE

  RESTORATION

  40

  ‘EXPLAIN IT TAE me agin. What have I got to do exactly?’

  ‘Jamie, it will be your job to build me a neutrino detector here on Mnemosyne.’

  ‘What have new trees got to do with it? Anyway ye’d call them saplings, Doctor—’

  ‘Neutrinos, Jamie! They’re a kind of subatomic particle.’

  ‘A suba – what? Are ye sure ye’ve got the right man for the job? Why don’t ye ask the town cat to do a highland reel while ye’re at it?’

  ‘Oh, but it’s really quite simple, Jamie. The neutrino detector will be nothing more elaborate than a big hole in the ice. It needs sensors to be placed in it, but I’m having Zoe order those up.’

  ‘Zoe? Is she back on the Wheel now?’

  ‘Yes, she is. She went back with Sonia. She’s going to be working with MMAC as soon as all this is up and running, and we try to close the loops of communication.’

  ‘A hole in the ice, ye say?’

  ‘More of a subsurface cavity. Entirely sealed up, and full of fluid – well, the meltwater will do. Oh, and a healthy dose of cleaning fluid would help.’

  ‘Cleaning fluid?’

  ‘I’m sure the Wheel’s stores can supply that. Most of the neutrinos will pass through the fluid not even noticing its presence, since ordinary matter is all but transparent to a neutrino. But given a big enough bulk of fluid, statistically speaking some of the neutrinos are going to interact with it, knocking off an electron from an atom here and there. Zoe’s sensors, drifting in the fluid and embedded around the cavity’s surface, will detect these events, or the products of them. On Earth they’ve been building detectors like this, big tanks of cleaning fluid down mines, oh, for a century or more. And then when we have enough detection events we will backtrack to build up a three-dimensional picture of the neutrino flow from the Arkive.’

  ‘I… see.’

  ‘And that, Jamie, will enable us to work out what the Arkive is saying – and what she wants. I wondered if you might work with your youngsters on this. Plenty of brawn and ingenuity to draw on there.’

  ‘Aye. A lot o’ energy with nowhere to go. Well, I’ll get stuck in. Me and the lads swingin’ a few picks, we’ll have it done in nae time.’

  ‘Oh, I suspect there are more efficient ways, Jamie…’

  So Jamie called together Sam Laws and his buddies Dai and Sanjay, and told them what the Doctor wanted, and described his first idea of how to achieve it. ‘I thought if we all got our picks, and started out on all sides, an’ just kept swingin’ until we met at the middle…’

  To his chagrin, they laughed at him.

  Sam clapped him on the shoulder. ‘Granddad, granddad. There are better ways to do it than that.’

  Crestfallen, Jamie asked, ‘What, then?’

  ‘We’re going to have to get Marshal Paley to hand over some blasters to us.’

  ‘Whisht ye! She’ll never do that!’

  He was wrong about that, though it took tense negotiations involving Sam, Jamie, Jo Laws, and even a few words from the Doctor down on Mnemosyne on the importance of the project, before Sonia would make the concession. And even then she insisted on hardwiring the settings, fixing the weapons to a mild stun setting.

  ‘But then that’s what the Doctor wants anyhow,’ said Jamie, consulting his notes. ‘A dispersed field. Low energy concent
ration. We’re trying to melt ice, not cut people in half.’

  ‘There,’ Sonia said, testing one of the blasters. ‘The only way you could kill somebody with one of these is by clubbing them over the head with it.’

  ‘Don’t give them ideas,’ Jo Laws said gloomily.

  So, for the first time, Jamie made the short hop down to Mnemosyne from the Wheel. Once again Harry Matthews and Karen Madl were drafted in as cab drivers, as Harry put it. This time the capacious holds of the phibian ship were loaded up with cleaning fluid from the Wheel’s stocks. The atmosphere in the cabin between Sam and his divorced stepfather, as they all sat there in their skinsuits, was as frosty as it had been before. But Jamie had an instinct that it was good for these two survivors of a broken family to have something to work on together.

  They landed close to the surface facility in Quadrant Four where the Doctor’s party had disembarked earlier. Florian Hart was already here, working on plans to restore the mine operations. They had to land here; it was the only part of the moon’s surface Florian’s guards and Sonia’s deputies had agreed could be regarded as secure.

  And Jamie noticed a scarred hulk, a cylinder with much-faded paintwork, lying beside the surface building. It reminded him of a fallen pine trunk. It must be an old rocket ship. He tapped Sam on the shoulder. ‘What’s yon spaceship doin’ lyin’ there on the ice?’

  Sam looked. ‘That’s an old Demeter booster, I think. Intercontinental missile. I never saw it before.’

  Jamie touched the studs on his skinsuit collar. ‘Jamie to Zoe. Can ye hear me, lass?’

  ‘Yes, Jamie, I’m here. Working hard…’

  There was a kind of gurgle in the background. ‘Oh, aye, so what’s that? Doesnae sound like hard work to me.’

  ‘I’m babysitting Casey Laws while I work. Helping Jo out; it’s a busy time. And we’re quite safe in here. We’re in one of MMAC’s old spaceships in the Wheel.’