Monday, April 22, 2013
Four Doctors: Chapter 7
Takeshi Watanabe stood quietly at the TARDIS door, looking out at the blasted wasteland that just moments ago had been his hometown of Hiroshima, Japan. Rose stood by, wanting to say something but no words seemed appropriate to the moment. The Doctor glowered over the console, poking at buttons and frowning at readings. Finally he straightened up and strode briskly toward the door.
“Right. Let’s go,” he said to Rose.
“Where?”
“I’ve got a lock on the time-corridor. We’re going to check it out.”
“Doctor…” Rose gestured at Mr. Watanabe and at the scene beyond. “Shouldn’t we just leave well enough alone?”
“Someone who doesn’t belong here is already involving themselves in this. I’ve seen it happen countless times before, and it never ends well. Not unless I make it end well.”
He walked to the door, pausing at Takeshi’s shoulder. The two men stood a moment in silence, looking at the devastation. The Doctor put a hand gently on Takeshi’s arm. “Too much war,” he said. Takeshi nodded and followed numbly behind Rose and the Doctor.
They passed in silence through the crumbled burning ruins. Here and there a survivor would emerge to stagger away, or to wail pitifully over loved ones buried in the rubble -- or perhaps reduced to ashes in the street and a shadow burned into the wall. Many had been scarred, burned, some were barely recognizably human any more. If indeed there were such a thing as Hell, Rose thought, it couldn’t be worse than this.
She found that she had to keep reminding herself of the reality of the scene around her. This wasn’t a quick jaunt thousands of years to a distant future. It was only moments ago, in real-time, that this desolation had been a vibrant and active city. Too much time-travel, she supposed, could have a kind of numbing effect. She only had to look to Takeshi, to his reaction to the ruins that had been his home, to feel again the reality of it all.
And, just perhaps, to understand a little better why the Doctor wanted her tagging along on his travels.
The steady stream of survivors grew as they moved away from ground zero.
“Where are we going?” Rose asked.
The Doctor pointed several blocks up, at a stand of bamboo and trees that seemed to have been mostly spared.
“Asano Park,” Takeshi muttered to himself.
Rose looked around at the growing crowd around them. Many were already approaching the park, taking shelter within the greenery. “They’re all going there,” she observed.
The Doctor nodded. “Most of the survivors of the Hiroshima bombing end up there.”
“Right where someone put this time-corridor thing,” Rose completed his thought. He nodded grimly.
“There’s something very not right going on here,” he said.
< Chapter 8
Four Doctors: Chapter 6
“Doctor, are you sure we’ve even moved?” As far as Donna could tell, the rocky wasteland around them looked a lot like the rocky wasteland they had just left behind.
“Mmmm?” The Doctor was staring out past the horizon, lost in thought. “We’ve moved. That was Skaro. This is Gallifrey.”
“So is there a reason why half the planets we visit look like Beachfield Quarry in Sussex?”
“Hmm? Of course there is,” the Doctor said, then fell into a moody silence.
“Right,” Donna said. “That’s helpful. Thanks.”
“Sorry,” the Doctor replied, shaking off his mood. “Industrial civilizations throughout the universe may develop in an infinite number of different ways, but the devastation it leaves on their native ecosystem looks the same everywhere.”
“So we left that first place, Whadayacall…”
“Skaro,” the Doctor said. “Home planet of the Daleks.”
“Those metal things we saw back there?”
“Yes, those metal things that invaded your own planet not too long ago.”
“Did they?” Donna asked. “When was that?”
“It was right before you appeared on my TARDIS the first time. Surely you remember…?”
“Yah,” Donna replied. “Surely you remember I had a wedding to plan back then? Alien invasions were not a big concern of mine.”
“Clearly not,” the Doctor said. “So we’ve gone from Skaro…”
“Home planet of the Daklites, right.”
“Daleks,” the Doctor snapped. “The single most ruthless war machines in the known universe. And we’ve come here to my own home planet of Gallifrey…”
“Hang on now,” Donna said. “You told me your planet was destroyed.”
“Well it was,” the Doctor said.
“And it was time-locked, or something, so you could never go back.”
“It was,” the Doctor said.
“So how can we be there now?”
“That,” the Doctor replied, “is what I’d like to figure out.”
He pulled the gadgety device out of his coat pocket and began taking more readings. “That time corridor we blundered into seems to be transporting something from the Thall City of Skaro, where we were before …” He adjusted some dials and took a few more readings. “… to somewhere just over that rise over there.”
Donna had tuned out the Doctor’s speech and was surveying the scenery around them.
“So I imagine it looked better before the big war, then?”
“No,” the Doctor said. “It always looked like this. My people call this the Wastelands.”
“Oh, there’s originality for you.”
“We’re scientists, not poets.”
“Obviously. Do you suppose anyone lives out around here?” Donna asked, looking around at the myriad caves in the surrounding rockface.
“Oh, quite a lot. We call them the Outsiders.”
“Of course you do.”
“But they’re not our concern right now,” the Doctor said, returning his attention to his gadgety device. “We’re far more concerned with who’s responsible for this time-corridor. And the Outsiders just don’t have the technology, the wherewithal, or, quite frankly, the interest.”
“No, I don’t suppose they would,” Donna quipped, but found the Doctor too engrossed in his readings to take notice of her acerbic wit. “So,” she went on, “I’ll just nip about and see what’s what, then.”
“Sure, fine,” the Doctor said absently.
“Maybe see what the natives are up to.”
“Jolly good. Enjoy yourself.”
Which left Donna with nothing better to do than to follow through on her bluff, even though the Doctor’s complete and utter failure to notice rather dampened the appeal.
Climbing to the top of the rise behind them, looking out over the barren landscape below, she saw an odd and oddly familiar blue box in the valley below. She turned back to look the way she had come – the Doctor was still engrossed in his work, and the TARDIS stood a few meters beyond, right where they had left it. She considered calling out to get the Doctor’s attention, then decided not to bother him. She set out down the hillside to investigate the duplicate TARDIS on her own.
< Chapter 7
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