Doctor Who Fan Fiction ❯ Dr Who – Martha and Ten The Inbetweens and Backstories ❯ Chapter 26

Out in the endless corridors of the Vortex, the police-box shell of the TARDIS spun and twisted, blown on the time winds like a ship at sea. Inside, in the organic jumble of the impossibly large central console room, Martha threw back her head and laughed out loud as the Doctor emerged from an interior door clutching a large inflatable banana.

`Oh, very elegant.'

`What?' The Doctor looked at her indignantly. Instead of his usual pinstripe suit and long, brown overcoat, he was in large baggy shorts, Hawaiian shirt and sombrero.

He pulled on a huge pair of sunglasses and threw his arms wide. `Perfect for a beach holiday, don't you think?'

`Absolutely. Elton John would be proud of you!'

`I got these from him I think.' The Doctor pulled off the sunglasses and peered at them with a frown. `Either him or the Mogadeesh of Replanak. Always get those two mixed up' He tossed the glasses onto the central console and thrust the banana at Martha. `Now then.' He cracked his fingers. `Where to go? Where to go?'

Martha wedged the inflatable behind the console room jump seat and joined him at the controls. She was dressed in a long, light dress and sandals, quite a change from her usual jeans and leather jacket. The Doctor has promised a break from their adventuring, a day or two away from danger and excitement. A chance to recharge their batteries.

The Doctor seemed more excited about it than she did.

He'd been unearthing all sorts of stuff from cupboards deep in the TARDIS; deck chairs, Lilos, even a bucket and spade. He twisted a control, peering at a readout. `Sun, Sea and Sugary Shiplanos, that's what's in order.'

`Sugary what?'

`You've never had a Sugary Shiplano? Aw, you haven't lived! It's like a liquid candy floss, but it's lighter than air, so it floats and you have to hold onto the straw that you drink it through to stop it floating away.'

Martha shook her head. `I never know if you're winding me up or not.'

`It's true! Were all the rage in 2050, bloke in Weston-super-Mare found the recipe in the wreck of an Androgum space hopper that crashed in the Bristol Channel.'

`So that's where we're going is it?' Martha folded her arms.

`All the beaches in time and space, and you're gonna take us to Weston-super-Mare?'

`Course not.' The Doctor grinned at her, darting around the console prodding at switches, twisting dials. `I know a lovely little place, nice beach, good hotel, nice restaurants . . .'

The glass column in the centre of the control room started to glow with power, and hidden engines started to groan and grind. The entire room was shuddering. Martha gripped the edge of the console. She always loved this, the moment just before they stepped out into somewhere new.

There was a loud thump, and the TARDIS gave a lurch.

`OK,' Martha's eyes were shining. `Where are we?'

The Doctor snatched his sunglasses off the console, grabbed her by the hand and dragged her towards the door. `Saudi Arabia. Late twenty-first century. Best Beach of the Century in Bartholomew's Planetary Gazetteer and Time Traveller's Guide.'

He hauled open the door and Martha gave a yelp of surprise as a blast of icy wind hit them. The Doctor stared in disbelief at the snow and ice that stretched out ahead of them.

`Sun, sea and Sugary Shiplanos?' gasped Martha, glaring at him and desperately trying to rub some warmth back into her bare arms. What was it with him and snow lately?

The Doctor gave a big sigh and wiped the snow from his sunglasses. `Don't suppose you'd fancy a frozen Shiplano instead?'

He locked the door of the TARDIS, thrust the key deep into his jacket pocket and wandered over to where Martha was waiting for him. He was now in his usual suit and coat, and Martha had changed into clothes more suitable for an arctic environment - heavy ski pants and a thick parka.

The Doctor's earlier exuberance had given way to puzzlement. He had checked the readings on the console and everything appeared to be normal, no anomalies or temporal distortions.

`So, have you worked out where we are yet?' Martha asked, shivering.

`Right where we should be.' The Doctor squinted through the glaring snow. `Persian Gulf, just down the coast from Dubai.' He nodded through the swirling snow. `World's tallest hotel should be that way. The Rose Tower.'

`It would be called that,' Martha muttered jealously under her breath.

The Doctor shot her a quizzical glance. Martha just smiled sweetly at him. `So how come we've ended up in a blizzard then?'

`Dunno.' He set off across the snow, coat tails flapping.

Martha hurried after him. `Hang on a minute, where are we heading off to then? Bit daft heading off with the visibility like this. Can't we just hop back into the TARDIS and try again?'

`Gotta find out what's gone wrong first. Can't just go shooting off into time and space without checking where we are, can we?'

He set off through the driving snow, seemingly oblivious to the cold and biting wind. Martha groaned and pulled up the hood of her parka, all chances of a relaxing beach holiday getting further behind every minute. She struggled after the retreating figure, her boots sinking deep into the snow. It was madness.

Despite the Doctor's assurances, Martha was sure that the

Persian Gulf was the last place on Earth that they were. In fact, there was a fair chance that they weren't on Earth at all.

She struggled up a steep incline. The Doctor was standing at the top, peering through the worsening storm. Her feet skidded on the icy rock and she caught hold of the Doctor's arm.

He nodded through the snow. `There's something over there. A cliff of some kind.'

`Cliffs. Great.' Martha could see nothing but greyness through the swirl of white. `Perhaps we can do some rock climbing instead of sunbathing.'

`Exactly.' The Doctor grinned at her. `Come on.'

Keeping a firm grip on his arm Martha followed him over to what seemed like a sheer cliff face, caked in snow and ice. Ridiculously sheer in fact. Martha craned her neck back. `It goes up for ever.'

The Doctor was frowning. `Yes. It does seem that way.' He reached out and touched the surface. `Too smooth to be natural.'

`Man-made?'

`Dunno.' The Doctor rubbed the surface with his sleeve. `Hang on . . . I can see something. Through the ice.'

He fumbled in the pocket of his coat and pulled out a stubby cylinder of metal. His sonic screwdriver. He made a few adjustments and held it out in front of him, pushing Martha behind him.

`Just in case.'

There was a flare of blue light and a high-pitched whine as the sonic vibrations cracked and crazed the ice surface. Frozen shards tumbled into the snow and a warm, glowing light started to pierce the gloom.

The Doctor bent down and rubbed at the patch he had cleared with his hand. He stepped back abruptly, a startled expression on his face.

Martha caught her breath, `What is it?'

The Doctor gestured towards the hole. `See for yourself.'

Hunkering down, Martha peered into the light. She stared at the face looking back at her. A young woman. A young woman in a bikini. With a laugh, the woman waved and ran off. Martha could see along a vast expanse of golden sand, heaving with holidaymakers.

The sky overhead was a brilliant blue, the sea alive with the sails of yachts. Martha tapped at the cliff with her knuckles. It was glass. She looked up at the Doctor in disbelief. `It's a dome. We're inside a huge glass dome. On the beach.'

`Hah!' The Doctor hauled her to her feet and twirled her round in the snow. `How could you ever have doubted me?!'

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Martha clambered through the remains of Snowglobe 7 airlock and picked her way carefully through the piles of broken glass. Where previously there had been snow and ice and raging winds, there was now only wet, steaming rock. In the distance, she could see the familiar police-box shape of the TARDIS. The Doctor was standing outside it, hands thrust deep into his pockets, staring up at the evening sky.

Glass crunching underfoot, Martha hurried over to him.

He looked down as she approached, his lean face breaking into a dazzling smile. 'Martha Jones! Am I glad to see you.' He threw his arms around her and gave her a huge hug.

Martha hugged him back. 'Sorry, Doctor.'

He looked at her, puzzled. 'Sorry? What for?'

'You left me to look after Cowley. I let her escape. Let her cause all this.'

Beth Cowley, the director of the Snowglobe project had taken a case of alien spores and spread them to the wind in an attempt to turn everyone on the planet into a host for the alien species.

'I'm not sure that you'd have been able to do much to stop Miss Cowley. From the little I knew of her, she was quite a formidable lady, and coupled with the psychic influence of the Gappa . . .'

'Gappa?' Martha raised a quizzical eyebrow. 'Is that what they were called?'

The Doctor nodded sadly. 'The last of their kind.'

'And you wanted to save them.'

'I thought I could.' The Doctor thrust his hands back into his pockets, kicking at the rock with his trainers. 'I wanted to try and stop another race from vanishing from the universe, but the universe had already decided that it was their time to die.'

He looked at Martha with sadness in his eyes. 'The

Gappa should never have survived; they should all have been dead a hundred thousand years ago. Their life cycle was a biological dead end, an aberration of evolution. It was only the good intentions of another species that allowed them to cheat death, a well-meaning preservation effort that could have meant the end of all life on Earth.'

'And is that what this was?' Martha looked around the dome. 'A well-meaning preservation effort by a doomed species?'

'Nah.' The Doctor shook his head. 'This is human beings doing what they do best, surviving, adapting; confronting problems head-on. It's me who should be apologising to you. It's me that's ruined it. Millions of tonnes of Arctic ice, boiled away in an instant.'

'Yes; and how did you manage that exactly?'

'Like I said; a well-meaning preservation effort. The

Gappa was being transported from its home planet to be preserved in some kind of zoo or safari park or something.

But they never got there. They crashed.'

'On Earth?'

'Yup.'

'In the past.'

'In the Stone Age.'

'Hence the cave paintings.'

'Exactly! You were lucky. If the Gappa had managed to wipe out Homo sapiens, you lot would never have got off the first rung of civilisation. You'd just be another doomed world twirling towards extinction.'

Martha shivered. The wind was starting to pick up again. 'So these well-meaning scientists that crashed. That means there was a spacecraft, right?'

The Doctor nodded. 'Right. A great big state-of-the-art starship, with a state-of-the-art plasma fusion drive buried in the ice of the prehistoric Arctic since the last Ice Age.

Well, I say that. Most of it is probably still up there. They came in pretty hard. Ship broke into a dozen pieces or more.'

'But the engine ended up here?'

'Frozen in the same ice as the Gappa.'

'And you blew it up.'

'Used the TARDIS scanner to track down the fusion core. A hundred thousand years in the ice and still enough fuel to go critical. Masses of heat, no fallout. Good thing I found it, not you lot. They can be very dangerous in the wrong hands.'

Martha stared at him. Despite the flippancy of his comments, there was a deep sadness in the Doctor's eyes. He had hated destroying the Gappa. In the end, it had come down to a simple choice. Gappa or human. Kill or be killed. Thank God he was on their side.

She squeezed his arm. 'Do you know who they were then, these good Samaritans who crashed a hundred thousand years ago?'

The Doctor shook his head. 'Not a clue.'

'Wanna go and find out?'

The Doctor beamed at her. 'Martha Jones, you're a woman after my own heart.'

She was after his heart, and was about to point out how true (and cruel) that comment was when she was distracted by the sight of a huge robot squeezing out through the TARDIS doors.

'What?'

'Ah, Martha, meet Twelve. Twelve, this is my best friend, Martha Jones.'

'+PLEASED TO MEET YOU, MISS JONES,+' the construction robot said.

Martha started at the robot, momentarily dumbstruck.

She looked at the Doctor in disbelief. 'Surely we're not taking him with us?'

The Doctor's face fell. Twelve had saved him from the Gappa on more than one occasion as he had tried to find a solution to the problem. After the stress of the last few hours, the Doctor's hurt-little-boy expression was more than Martha could take. She burst out laughing.

Martha perched on an Outcrop of lichen-covered rock and watched though the Doctor's high-tech opera glasses as the group of hunters swathed in thick fur made their way slowly through the thick snow, heading south, following the mammoth herd, searching for food on the tundra.

She lowered the glasses and smiled, amazed - not for the first time - by how quickly she had got used to something as mind-boggling as being able to wander though her own prehistory.

The Doctor had programmed Twelve with a series of instructions for Mr Roberts on how to rebuild the robots' memory and a farewell message for nurse Marisha El-Sayed. Martha had been sad not to have a chance to say a proper goodbye but, as the Doctor had pointed out, they had just been responsible for the destruction of a major government scientific facility and that might not make them the most popular people on the planet.

She raised the glasses again, focusing on the tiny figure far below her. The Doctor was making his final sweep through the remains of the crashed spacecraft that had brought the Gappa to prehistoric Earth.

She and the Doctor had arrived earlier in the day, watching as the stricken craft had arced through the air like a fiery comet, clipping the top of the distant glacier in a gout of flame and ploughing nose-first into the valley below. The spacecraft had broken into a dozen pieces, just as the Doctor had predicted, the section housing the engines and the Gappa skidding to a halt on the ice sheet below them.

They had watched from the safety of the TARDIS as the alien had crawled through the wreckage and slowly made its way through the snow towards the glacier, and the future.

The Doctor had identified the ship as Modrakanian. As the sun had started to rise, he had left Martha on the top of the hill with his opera glasses, told her to watch and taken the TARDIS on a brief trip down into the valley.

As the sun had cleared the distant mountains, Martha had watched spellbound as the mammoth herd shook the last vestiges of the night's snow from their fur and, snorting and bellowing began the long journey south.

A more familiar bellowing echoed up from the valley, and the tiny, distant shape of the TARDIS faded away, reappearing a few seconds later alongside her.

The Doctor emerged, following Martha's gaze towards the distant mammoths and the hunters that tracked them. 'Fancy a mammoth steak for dinner?'

Martha grimaced. 'No, thank you!'

'Good for you. Puts hair on your chest.'

'Definitely no, then.' She clambered to her feet. 'Did you find them?'

The Doctor nodded solemnly. He had been determined to find the bodies of the crew of the doomed Modrakanian ship, to take them back home to their own planet for a proper burial. Martha guessed it was his way of making up for failing to save the Gappa.

'So, I guess its Modrakania next stop?'

'Yes!' The Doctor rubbed his hands together briskly.

'And then, if you don't mind, I'd like to go somewhere where they've never heard of snow.' Martha pulled her parka around her.

'That's fine by me.' The Doctor pushed open the TARDIS door and ushered Martha inside,

'Where did you have in mind?' she asked.

'Ever heard of Weston-super-Mare?'

She gave a short laugh, which was cut short when she saw the eight body bags on the floor. As a medical student she was used to seeing dead bodies, but it still didn't get any easier, knowing that people had lost their lives.

`I suppose it would have caused some sort of paradox if you'd have landed in their ship and stopped it from crashing in the first place,' Martha said sadly.

The Doctor blew out his breath. `Yeah. It became an established event for us when we encountered the Gappa. After that, the events that led up to it had to be allowed to occur . . . including all the deaths I'm afraid.'

She came and stood next to him at the console as he started the Time Rotor. `Don't you ever feel like saying “to hell with the rules” and changing the past to save lives?'

He gave her a stern look. `Someone tried that once . . . let's just say it didn't end well. In fact, it ended exactly as it had started, with a man being hit by a car to save all of creation.'

Martha gave him a quizzical look, wondering if he was going to expand on the details, but he turned back to the console and contacted the Modrakanian space port authority to make the arrangements for the repatriation of the zoological expedition.