inferno fiction 16: later page 3

'What do you mean?'

'Well, when the gas starts they’ll fall out of their gondolas. They could drown – and their passengers too.'

'Oh, I think we’ll be fine,' the Doctor said. 'Everything’s at a standstill. They’ll all be on clean-up detail.'

Rory had his doubts. That all sounded OK (in theory) but there was always the human factor, the one thing that got in the way. He’d have to say something. The Doctor was pointing at the sky. 'And I think I’ve just worked out how to get the Saturnynes out of the canals,' he said. A bird was flying deep into the city, twigs in its beak. 'Nest building… She’s cleaning up too – probably making things safe for her young ones after all the chaos.'

'What does that have to do with the Saturnynes?'

'Amy, for them there’s nothing stronger than the bond between mother and child. Now –'

'Hang on, hang on,' Rory said. 'When you stopped Rosanna destroying this place she threw herself in the canal and her children ate her – well, some of them at least. Not exactly affectionate.'

'She was still disguised as a human,' the Doctor replied, shrugging. 'Must’ve still been wearing her perception filter. Anyway, so, when she gives birth, a Saturnyne mother secretes a psycho-chemical agent as part of the bonding process. The most important thing to her is maintaining the bond with her hatchlings throughout her life. (The more she does it the more her children come to rely on it and so the bond becomes stronger and stronger.) When the receptors pick up the signal the kids experience an intense desire to be with their mother... For closeness. So, if we could find and transmit the agent they’d come looking for Rosanna.'

Amy grinned. 'She brings the love... Cool.'

The Doctor smiled, nodding. 'I couldn’t have said it better myself: “She brings the love.” But in order for Rosanna to bring the love there’s something I need from her place… Back in two shakes.'

Forty-five minutes later

'What did you get?' Rory asked as the Doctor closed the door behind him and strode up to the console. He was holding a clear, zip-locked plastic bag. Something gleamed at the bottom. 'I’d been thinking of a glove or something like that when I left,' the Doctor replied, 'something loaded with Rosanna’s DNA.' He put the bag down on the console. 'But then I realised that her gloves, her dress, her hair – everything – were a product of the perception filter masking her Saturnyne form. They weren’t real. So, we need something she’d only had contact with when in her original form.'

Rory looked down again at the bag’s contents. A glittering mass of blue and purple. Metal? Plastic? 'What is it..?' he said.

'Skin. Turns out Saturnynes have a skin shedding cycle, like snakes. I found this one in a bin in Rosanna’s bedroom. Chock full of DNA from which we can extract the love agent.'

Three hours, 31 minutes later

The TARDIS and TARDIS 2 sat beside each other. Rory, in his face mask, stood watch between them and waited for Venice to sleep, ringed by the fans blowing back the misty gas pumping from the TARDIS. The first people affected by it – market traders, shop keepers, a city official – were swallowed in the haze where they had fallen and, very slowly, Venice had begun to disappear in a great bank of fog; as the cloud built and built, Rory heard the city’s hubbub starting to fade away.

He looked again at the Doctor’s sensor. The display was blank. It seemed the Doctor had been spot on about Venice being completely immobilised. If any human life forms did register as struggling in the water Rory hoped the assurances he’d been given that the TARDIS could reach them in time were just as solid. He didn’t like to think about those who might simply drown without coming round.

'That’s it, thank you Amy!' Rory heard behind him and glanced back through the open doors of TARDIS 2. Amy was holding something steady on the console while the Doctor raced to the other side, turning things up, turning things down, throwing levers. 'Good! Here it is! Bingo!' the Doctor went on, joyfully. 'Oh, Rosanna’s boys won’t be able to stop themselves when they get a load of this!'

Amy was grinning like mad. Rory felt another little stab of anxiety. The conversation he dreaded – life without her.

A moment went by and he was suddenly aware that the city’s noise had stopped. He turned to face the fog. It was eerie – just mist and silence. A nowhere world. Rory went into TARDIS 2, peeling off his mask.

'Doctor, I think Venice is… is… Under.'

'Thank you, Rory. Right, let’s transmit this bad boy!'

Eight hours, 57 minutes later

Rory, Amy and the Doctor watched one of the console monitors. On it, the last few Saturnynes waddled into TARDIS 2, each one’s arrival recorded on a counter in the top right corner of the screen.

'…9,998, 9,999, 10,000. Got ’em all!' said Amy. 'We did it.'

The Doctor went outside and closed the doors of TARDIS 2. Locking them, he switched off the fans and brought them back to the TARDIS.

'So,' Rory asked, 'where’s this planet you’re taking them to?'

'Change of plan!' the Doctor said, dumped the fans and shut the doors. 'I can’t just plonk our guests into a new eco-system – highly irresponsible. So, there’s this nature reserve in Andromeda. It’s massive, covers two planets and an artificial moon. Dedicated to aquatic species whose home-worlds are gone… Listra II’s only surviving Giant Sea Horses! Talking Dolphins – all posh, with Radio 4 accents. Oh, my friend Douglas would have loved those! Zygonian Skarasens! Sea Weed creatures, got all sorts. Head warden owes me a favour. Our Saturnynes will fit right in. So, now the TARDIS does her "vworp! vworp!" thing around TARDIS 2 and we’ll drop them off.'

Thirteen hours later

'Right! Same as before,' the Doctor said, manhandling a great length of cable with plugs at either end up to the console. 'Only this time we’re linking TARDIS 2’s telepathic circuits up to the TARDIS.'

'The future you will be pleased to get her back in one piece.'

'Well, Rory, with any luck he’ll never know she was gone.'

Amy stared at the Doctor. 'You told him you were borrowing her, right?'

'No. Didn’t want him to know. I was able to sneak into the Seeding Room without being noticed. Crossing one’s own time line in either direction is No No Number 1 in the Big Book of Causality – well, not Number 1 but it’s right up there – but I genuinely couldn’t think of another way of safely transporting all the Saturnynes.'

'Wait a minute,' Amy said. 'Future Doctor, surely he knows that you’ve already done this?'

'You’re right. But that wasn’t the problem. I just really, really, really didn’t want to meet him.'

Rory saw the Doctor’s eyes suddenly narrow, a pained expression creasing his features.

'Are you alright?' Amy said.

Rory understood. Whether Future Doctor was a much older version of this Doctor or an entirely fresh face, he knew what was coming – this Doctor’s ultimate fate. All the grisly details, the where and when and how. And Rory understood something else, too. Whoever Future Doctor might be he had all the answers to the questions Rory dreaded. He held the key to a future that Rory, deep in his heart, was half convinced was coming true. And Rory was glad they would never get to meet.

The Doctor smiled sadly at Amy. 'It’s nothing... It’s just that... Well, it’s never a good idea to get too close to your own future. Don’t get me wrong, I wouldn’t have asked him and he wouldn’t have said anything – that’s not our style – but you know what it’s like round here... Stuff has a nasty habit of...you know... Happening.' He sighed. 'Anyway, enough of that, still things to do.'

The Doctor passed Amy one end of the cable.

'You’re sure you’re OK?' she said.

'Of course. I invented OK – well, I didn’t invent it but I was there when it was brainstormed and did most of the coffee runs. Now, come along, Pond, no slacking. Plug!'

Amy shrugged, frowning, Rory saw. He thought again of the Doctor’s guilt at forgetting the Saturnynes were still in the canals. The burden his travels could bring. At least part of the man’s cheeriness was that it helped block out his anxieties. They were never far away.

Amy plugged the cable into the lash-up of wire and equipment the Doctor had used earlier. She gave a thumbs-up and he went down the stairs with the rest of the cable, letting it out behind him as he came. He stepped into TARDIS 2, shouting, 'Won’t be long!'

After a little the slack cable twitched, slithering forward in his wake. A few moments later he re-emerged, leaving one of the doors ajar, and took his place at the console. 'TARDIS 2 is now linked to the TARDIS in the same way I was,' he said. 'And... so... Geronimo! Back down the time corridor!'

The Doctor threw the “GO!” lever and TARDIS 2 vanished, the cable falling to the floor as the time machine melted away. 'Back to Future Doctor! And now I think of it I’d better close down the time corridor.' His fingers spun across the controls and the corridor began to shrink inwardly. It closed in on itself and vanished with a pop that made Rory think of bubble gum bursting.

'There we are. So, that’s that,' the Doctor said. 'Yes, bit of a weird one – fiddly, timey wimey – Oh, it never stops, does it..?'

Something on the console was beeping and he reached across to a bank of switches, flipping one. The beeping stopped.

'What’s that?'

'Nothing to worry about, Amy. Just a signal telling me TARDIS 2 got there safely. Yes, as I was saying, fiddly, timey wimey, loads to organise… But, anyway gang, good team effort!' He looked at them both, smiling, rubbing his hands. 'And I think we deserve some pure, unadulterated us time. Go nuts. Kick back for a bit.'

The Doctor darted to the console’s typewriter and punched in co-ordinates. 'Yeah, that’s the stuff! 1977! New York! Studio 54, the most exclusive nightclub in – the – world! Almost impossible to get into. Almost impossible? Ha! Not when you’ve got this big, beautiful TARDIS!'

Rory looked at Amy. She was thrilled at the Doctor’s idea, his antics, as he whirled about the console and flipped the "GO!" lever.' Hanging on his every word.

The TARDIS blazed through time and into Rory’s future, into unknown territory.

written by

JACK LAWRENCE

artwork by

COLIN JOHN

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