Doctor Who Fan Fiction ❯ Geological Conundrum ❯ Chapter 1

Disclaimer: Doctor Who is owned by BBC international, as are the characters of UNIT. The character Dr. Weismann, Dr. Padyesh, and Dr. Alvarez Moore as well as other minor characters not in Dr. Who are my own creations, and mean no harm to the show. This story is fan fiction!

The Geological Conundrum

Part I

By Trynia Merin

"7:00 AM" blared the alarm in bright red line characters, burning right into her myopic eyes. She felt the contour of her eyeballs as she brushed the sand from them. Pastel shades of morning came into greater focus after she rubbed the sleep from her eyes. In the bed a few beds down, a hump migrated underneath a cream blanket with a moan.

"Miss Smith, rise and shine," urged a cheerful voice.

"Eh?" she murmured, trying to put time and place to where she is. Slowly she remembers that she is not at home, but on another assignment.

"Dr. Alvarez sent me to get you. She wants everyone who's touring the caves to be on the bus in an hour, Miss Smith.”

"Oh right," muttered the young woman, sliding stiffly from the warm habitat of her bedclothes. Cold air hit her bare legs as she stumbled onto the chilly floor. Blindly her right hand sorts amongst the litter on her smoothly varnished beside table. A foil wrapper... a bit of toffee... no joy. Ah, her watch. The whole room hardens into angles and lines. Three beds like hospital surplus ones. Two windows on the world glared into the distant few spires of the college town. Oxford says good morning to the occupants of the room.

"Hurry up, Sharon!" spoke the midlands accent, its broad high tones rolling.

"Coming, Miss Smith?" asked the confined proper style of a Londoner. “Dr. Moore wanted us both to make sure you knew everything you needed to do.”

"Just a tick," she replied, gathering up her things. Short fingers fumble with soft thick brunette hair, struggling to pull it into a reasonably professional look. “I've got to look the part…”

10:00 AM "field trip"

A student group snaked its way into the dark system of Cheddar Gorge caverns. It was the day of the geology department's student outing to study the famed caves there. As a reporter, Sarah Jane Smith went many places few others dared go. It was difficult to eke out an existence as a freelance journalist, but she was not fussy when it came to subject matter. Since her aunt Lavinia was a virologist, Sarah had a keen interest in all matters science.

This latest piece was part of a series on local geological and scientific attractions. Designed to catch public interest in science, local geologists hosted tour groups through the caves. Dr. Alvarez Moor, a renowned geologist had eagerly consented to let Sarah Jane Smith travel with a group of her and her graduate students. She would live, eat sleep and dwell among them for the next week. Perhaps Sarah's piece would bring wealthy patrons to keep the studies of the local geology going.

Ahead of the group stretched the aura of the lantern as it illuminated the darkness. Individual headlights on student's helmets danced and bobbed like fireflies in the midnight cavern. Electric torches displaced the blackness. "Millions of years can be pared away in these caverns," explained the guide. To demonstrate his point, he held his lantern up to the wet wall, shiny in cave slime. Sarah Jane Smith and Moore's students carefully noted the alternating colored bands of rock and sediment exposed there.

"I can just imagine it now," whispered Sarah to Sharon. "Dinosaurs probably walked on that very soil, maybe even the first mammals."

"Another paleontology enthusiast," chuckled Sharon with amusement. "Just think, Sharon. The earth builds up layers like human skin does. Only more layers are added to the top, instead of growing up from the bottom."

"It's amazing," added Sharon, sitting down on a nearby ledge. "How these geology chaps can tell what happened all that time ago by digging up old rocks and fossils." Her battery charged helmet light beamed on Sarah Jane Smith, who had just sat down next to her. "It would be really stupendous if..."

"If what?" Sarah asked.

"If those paleontologists could figure out what happened a shorter time ago with these rocks here... perhaps only twenty years ago instead of ten-thousand."

"Like a spelunking Sherlock Holmes?" suggested Sarah. "Mystery of the aging rock?" Both women giggled. Sarah quite liked the college students, who were women interested in eking out careers in a male dominated field.

In the thick shadow beyond them moved another student. "You'd have to time travel to know how things really happened, you know," whispered another hushed voice, twanged with Birmingham. Into the little pool of light stepped a girl clad in the similar coveralls and hard hat of a spelunker.

"I say Georgiana, its more fun trying to guess and make-believe what happened, than to just traverse time and find out." said Sharon. "Anyway, time travel is just bunk."

"If you only knew," muttered Sarah under her breath. Few knew of her involvement with strange travelers beyond space and time.

"Not to disappoint you, my friend, but lately I saw a story on the telly that certain," and here Georgiana said. "American scientists are working on a possible theory for time travel."

"I read about that theory last month. Just a lot of rubbish."

"Maybe not, Sharon," returned Sarah Jane. "Europeans thought the world was flat, and look what happened when Columbus came along. Now children are learning most geography off globes instead of maps."

As usual, Sarah's confident humor treatment of history brought smiles to her new friend's lips. As the three had been sitting there talking, the group had moved on. "Uh oh!" groaned Sarah. "We've been left behind!"

"No problem, Miss Smith," reassured Georgiana. "We can go exploring on our own, then catch up later."

"Are you certain?" queried Sarah cautiously. "You might get into trouble with the professor, or Mrs. Chadwell, or even worse get lost."

"Oh come now! The professor says every potholing team must have at least three members, and there are three of us here," pleaded Georgiana.

"I think I know the way though these caves," volunteered Sharon. "I'll make sure we rejoin the group on the way out."

"Hurrah for intrepid journalism!" laughed Sharon and Georgiana.

Sarah shrugged and smiled at the exuberance of two female students slightly younger then she. It hadn't been too long since she'd graduated from college. All one for probing the unknown she said cheerfully, "Lead on then!"

11:00 AM

The three intrepid explorers ventured deeper into the cave system. Georgiana led the group, because she had the brightest flash light. Sharon followed, with Sarah bringing up the rear. Sarah Jane kept one hand on the wall, feeling the cool slippery surface. They had not gone more than fifty more yards, when Sharon begins to feel a faint vibration from the walls.

"Georgiana, hold on a sec," said Sarah Jane. “Sharon…”

"What's going on?" asked Georgiana.

"Do any of you feel it?" Sarah Jane Smith asks her two friends

"Feel what?" asked Sharon.

"A sort of faint pulsing and it's coming from the walls."

"Maybe it's just the autos on the roads above," suggested Sharon. "England has got plenty of motorways."

"I have a funny feeling about this. Are you sure you two want to continue?” Sarah wondered.

"I'm for that," chimed in Georgiana.

"If you have a queer feeling, why don't we catch us up with the tour and come back later?" Sarah suggested.

"Okay, you two. We'll just go on a little more, for Georgiana. If we find nothing interesting, then we'll catch up with the tour," said Sharon. With her hand still on the wall, she led the little party onwards.

Then the pulsing became a throbbing in the air around them. The two friends could only feel it when they put their hands to the walls, but their very brains drum with the oscillating. Sarah Jane saw the air about her seem to twist and undulate. Stopping, she rubbed her eyes and squinted.

"Oh, Georgie," called Sharon. "Do you feel a sort of... wind at your back?" Just as Sharon finished, the trio heard a low moan, followed by a rush of wind.

"Nice breeze," commented Sarah, attempting to mask the nervousness she suddenly felt. She beamed her light on the walls. Her torch beam flickered, and then suddenly fizzled out.

"Oh, blast it! I just had new batteries put in this ruddy torch!" After rattling it a few seconds, the light flicked back on. However this time, the beam suddenly twisted about, stretched like a rubber band back on itself. Gasping, she dropped it.

Sharon and Georgiana whirl to face her. "What's wrong," asked Sharon, placing a hand on Georgiana's trembling shoulders. A stammering Georgiana babbled what just happened, face ghostly pale in the beam of Sarah's light. Sarah listened carefully. The breeze gusted into a rushing wind. Sarah drew in her breath sharply as she blocked her face from the burst of air. "Get back you two!"

The following events confused all of them. All the signs were there. Some sort of time flux, much like what the Doctor described what had transpired in London months ago during the Dinosaur Invasion. She shouted to her friends to turn back, to run. Both Sharon and Georgiana raced away, the wind slashing at their backs. This was all entirely beyond their comprehension and experience. Uncertainty haunted Sarah again.

At first the others were reluctant to leave Sarah behind. Once overcome with fear, they wasted no time in rushing out to find the tour group. Out of range of the wind, Sharon glanced back to where they'd left Sarah. The only thing she saw was the light from Sarah's helmet light suddenly moving backwards, and then shooting far ahead. Georgiana pulled her arm, wrenching her away.

"Hurry Sharon!" she cried. "Miss Smith fell down a hole!"

"That was... no hole!" gasped Sharon. She stumbled along behind the other girl reluctantly.

"Do come on, Sharon! Don't hang about! We must find the group so they can get a rope!"

Dazed, Sharon blundered behind her. She couldn't help thinking that some force far beyond reality was at work here. Looking at her watch, she scarcely believed only five minutes had passed. 11:15

If the wind wasn't and indication of a time disturbance, the speed at which motion moved was. From her travels with Unit's Scientific Advisor, she had learned to accept the strangeness of the Universe. Or possibly Sarah's mind could have been rambling at a far greater velocity. She felt herself moving forwards, then suddenly backwards. Then the cave floor dissolves from beneath her feet, plummeting her into blackness. There's a loud whistling, then a bone wrenching thump as she hits the bottom.

Sarah Jane Smith opened her eyes to thick darkness. Groping for her flashlight, she touches the cold, slimy floor. Nothing. When her hand found the cylindrical rod, it was jagged with broken glass. She slid her hand into her coverall pocket for her third source of light, the emergency penlight. Before her hand closed upon the familiar rod, she felt her coveralls damp with cave dew. Sarah did not struggle to sit up immediately. Instead, she lay very still, absorbing the feeling of her surroundings for any slight sounds. Nothing. That same disquieting absence of life. Responding to a first aid course taken a time ago, she methodically patted herself for broken bones and other possible injuries. To her relief, she found none, save a few bruises. "Thank heaven I wasn't more badly banged up," she murmured. Hearing the sound of her own voice made Sarah start. She rolled to her feet, and standing shakily for a moment moved to her left.

The penlight pinpointed a small circle on the wall before her. By now Sarah realized that the chamber she had fallen into was a natural cistern. Aiming her penlight up, she attempted to see the top. The feeble beam of her penlight rapidly faded into infinity. "Bother!" she muttered.

It was then she remembered her helmet light. What if the fall had damaged the battery attached to her belt? Carefully she switches on the beam. To her relief, the lamp functions flawlessly. She can even see the numbers on her digital watch. 12:30 it read. What day though?

Looking up, she discovers the hole she had fallen through. "Cooee!" she yelled. "Georgiana! Sharon! Are you there?"

Her unanswered voice echoed to no avail on the curved walls.

A dark skinned fellow bent over his computer console, his delicate Indian features mirrored in the black screen. Silently he tapped in the next few coordinates, reading them meticulously off the yellow tablet propped to his immediate left.

"Delta seven by thirty nine," he muttered.

Later, Sarah heard voices. They seemed clustered around the top of the cistern. "Someone's come to rescue me; maybe it's Sharon and Georgiana with the search party," she hoped.

"Hey!" she cried. "I'm down here! Can you hear me?"

Sure enough, there was a reply. "Cooee! Hold on down there!"

"Hello up there! Help me!"

The voice was unfamiliar, but that didn't really matter. It was enough just to be found!

"Can you pull yourself up?"

"Yes, nothing broken!" responded an excited Sarah. "But I can't climb up! Could one of you throw me a rope?"

The voices from above tossed down a rope. Hastily Sarah grasped the end, knotting the rope into a noose that would securely hold her weight. She slipped it over her neck, under her left arm. Then, grasping the rope firmly in both hands, she braced her booted feet against the wall and walked up the side of the cistern. All she sensed was the damp nylon of the rope between her palms, and the minds of the party above.

As she pulled herself from the cistern, Sarah Jane Smith attempted to think up a plausible excuse for Professor Moore. She was entrusted to the two students and knew their professor would be angry with their negligence. Probing with her left hand, she at long last felt the rocky rim of the cistern mouth under her fingers. To her extreme annoyance, one of the search party shone a light right into her face. "Oy, shine that someplace else!" she complained. "Don't you know that can damage a person's retina?"

"Hold on chaps!" came the voice shining the lantern. "You're not supposed to be here!”

"Of course not!" exclaimed Sarah. "I'm Sarah Jane Smith. I'm a reporter, and I fell down this stupid hole, and I don't enjoy being half blinded!"

A pair of strong hands hauled her firmly from the pit. "Thanks a lot," she muttered grimly. There was a brief flicker of another lantern as several other people approached. Sarah began to think something was really wrong. The odd orderly and subdued way in which these men thought. Such patterns were typical among soldiers.

One of them reported to his superior. "Yes sir, we found a survivor? Yes, she did reportedly fall down this hole, but there's no trace of her now."

Sarah marched out of the caves, thinking it best not to argue with soldiers. She was blissfully pleased to see sunlight again. To her surprise, she saw a military encampment ahead. "Special maneuvers? I can't help but wonder if it's UNIT," she puzzled. The patrol led her to a triangular green army tent.

Behind a folding table sat a major, she could tell from the series of stars on his red shoulder flash. The sergeant saluted him. Soon afterwards, Sarah Jane was interrogated. "Where is the school group that was here?" she asked. This whole thing seemed so inconsistent. Then, quite agitated with her for forgetting, Sarah Jane remembered the time disturbance.

“Why were you in the caves? Were you not informed that the park was closed to the public two days ago?"

"I assure you sir," repeated Sarah Jane. "I'm a reporter, and I have a press pass?"

Awkwardly she patted her pockets to look for the bit of paper. To her chagrin she found nothing. Her explanation fell on surprised ears. The sergeant exchanged a puzzled glance with his commanding officer. "I don't remember the boys allowing any such tours during this military investigation."

"Military operation?" queried Sarah Jane, her eyes widening in confusion. "Look, if you just talk to the park service people..."

"This area was clearly sealed off two days ago. Didn't you see the signs?"

"Signs… I was part of a group from Oxford. Look, since you're a military chap, perhaps if you contacted Brigadier Alistair Lethbridge Stuart of UNIT he could put in a word for me,” she said.

“Hang about Miss Smith, how did you know about that?” blinked the Major.

“Well… I happen to have worked with UNIT's scientific advisor from time to time. Doctor… Smith…” she said hopefully.

All the officers exchanged worried glances. They weren't sure whether to take this woman seriously or not. Especially since she had no identification, and knew personal details of special operations.

Apparently that didn't satisfy the major. "Look miss, let's start from the top. What is your name?"

Another man in khaki field uniform stepped into the tent. Promptly he saluted the major seated behind the table. "Report, Sergeant Benton," ordered the major. In a capsulized version, the officer delivered his account.

“Thank GOODNESS,” said Sarah.

“Cor, Miss Smith?” Benton blinked taken aback. “What are you doing here?”

“Sergeant you KNOW this young lady?” the Major asked.

“Do I know her? She's a friend of the Scientific Advisor for Unit!” said Benton. “Miss Smith what are you doing here? Don't you know this area's been cordoned off?”

“Sergeant Benton, I've lost my ID… please I need your help,” said she.

“This is most irregular! Sergeant, you DO know Miss Smith, or not?” asked the Major.

“Sir if I might be allowed to take her into custody and verify her identity with the Brigadier myself,” said Benton.

“Under the circumstances I'd say no…”

“Sir, I can vouch for her personally,” Benton said gallantly.

“Fine. But she's YOUR responsibility,” the Major said. “And it's your head on the block, not mine!”

“Thank you sir,” Benton saluted. “If you'll come with me Miss Smith, I'll get you sorted out.”