Up a Tree (p.29)
The Doctor stared, a look of wonder on his face. “It’s Hanaii,” he said.
“What's Hanaii?” Amy demanded.
He turned and looked at them with an amazed look on his face, then immediately turned back to the “monster.”
“It’s Hanaii technology.” He waved a long, admiring hand at it. “The Hanaii were the most amazing energy engineers. They built the most fantastically complex machines out of pure energy.” He stepped forward and Rory grabbed him.
He looked back. “The Hanaii disappeared eons ago, back before Gallifrey even mastered time travel. We’d come across some of their technology once in a while, but no one ever knew what happened to them.”
“So, they were electrical engineers?” Rory asked, trying to get his mind around it.
The Doctor drooped and stared at him despairingly. “They weren’t electricians, Rory,” he said in disgust. “It’s not like wiring a toaster.”
Rory frowned and looked behind him, “Then why all the equipment?”
The Doctor shrugged, not looking, still mesmerized. “Even potters need a potter’s wheel.” He turned and looked at them, the flashing lights of the monster echoing in his eyes. “They still had to construct the devices, they didn’t just conjure it directly out of their heads. But once constructed, the devices were self-sustaining.”
The Doctor turned back to the machine with admiring eyes. “This, this takes unbelievable skill, and elegance.”
“Well, this elegant, machine of yours is killing people,” Amy said with dampening vehemence. “Can you switch it off?”
The Doctor stared at the scintillating brain for a few more minutes, then grinned, rubbing his hands together. “I can try.”
He turned and lifted his nonexistent eyebrows at them, eyes gleaming at the challenge; he dashed over to the undamaged wall of machines, he started cataloging, poking and prodding.
Amy turned around, watching him, and noticed Zeke, huddled against the back wall, shaking, staring at the giant brain with wide, terrified eyes. It was the most expression she’d ever seen out of a Trelwin. He stank not of tar, but of some stark, rancid, undertone, as if he was beyond terror and trying to be very quiet about it.
“What’s wrong with him?” she asked.
The Doctor glanced over, distractedly. “How would you feel if you suddenly came face to face with your people’s devil?”
Amy glared at him, and walked over to try and comfort the Trelwin.
There was a sudden shift, and rattle, and abruptly the entire far end of the rockslide tumbled down. The hunters jumped through, weapons raised, the pilot spark on the end of Jute’s flamethrower shone bright in the dust.
“What the hell?” Erik said. He stared at the glowing room, the crystal floor, and the bright, flashing, energy brain floating in the far room.
“What the bloody hell is going on here?” he boomed.
The Doctor spun around, waved an elegant hand, and said, “There, gentlemen, is your ‘monster’.”
Jute just stared, Eldon glared uncomprehendingly, Erik glowered and looked like he wanted to shoot something,
Darvish cocked his head and studied it, his eyes darting as he followed the zipping paths of multicolored lightning.
“What is it?” he asked.
“Rory,” the Doctor said. “Over to you.” He turned back to the equipment wall and went back to work.
Rory explained that it was an ancient bit of alien technology. The Doctor snorted at that bit of over-simplification.
“Can it see us?” Jute asked, keeping his flamethrower trained on it.
“No,” the Doctor said distractedly, still working the wall of machines, stretching up on tiptoe to reach the higher controls. “It’s just a machine. It’s doing whatever it was programmed to do.”
“And what’s that?” Darvish asked as he walked up beside him and studied the wall, with its strange conglomeration of melted metal swirls, buttons, levers and sliders.
“From the evidence,” the Doctor said, frowning as he traced long fingers over a section of swirl. “Some sort of brainwave modification.”
“Why would anyone do that?” Erik asked, annoyed.
The Doctor looked over his shoulder. “Who knows? Social experiment? Population control? Doomsday weapon? Could be anything.” He went back to tinkering.
“But why did it suddenly start to affect humans?” Eldon asked.
The Doctor didn’t bother to look around this time. “The transport.” He reached higher to manipulate another control, stretching on his toes. “The ‘deaths’ started happening just after the transport crashed into the building.” He came down off his toes and moved to another piece of equipment. He nodded distractedly over to the brain. “It must have thought it was being attacked. So it scanned the ‘aggressors’ and incorporated them into its program.”
He turned and looked at them with dark eyes. “I doubt they were killed by treecats, not by their positions and condition. Probably by the ghosts, or some variation of them.” He laid a hand down on a freestanding piece of equipment. “I’m going to need Zeke.”
They all snapped out of their listening trance.
Amy glanced up from the Trelwin. “I don’t think he’s in any condition to help,” she said.
The Doctor wandered over and hunkered down in front of the Trelwin. Zeke didn’t take his eyes off the ‘monster’.”
The Doctor slid a hand in front of his face and cut off his view. He apparently communicated something to the Trelwin. The elderly gray alien turned his eyes up to him, gradually his tension eased, the blankness of his expression returned. He stood up, all the way up.
All the humans stood back a bit in surprise. Standing, the Trelwin was seven feet tall, thin as a rake, and looked a lot like the ghostly apparitions that made up the electric fence.
Amy and Rory shared a wide-eyed glance.
The Doctor took the Trelwin’s hand and led him over to the machine.
-----
The Doctor led Zeke over to the control console, sat him down, and plugged him in. He sat down crosslegged in front of the crouching Trelwin. He rubbed his fingertips together. “This may take a while.”
He touched Zeke’s temples, and closed his eyes.
They all watched for a moment, they could see the Doctor’s eyes flickering rapidly behind his eyelids, but nothing else happened.
“Right!” Rory said, clapping his hands and startling everyone. “He’s going to be out of it for a while. We may as well make use of the time.”
Before Rory could suggest anything, Darvish’s stomach rumbled, loudly, like two dragons fighting. The short Safari leader looked down at his own midsection, then started laughing. He rubbed a long hand over his face.
“We may as well set up camp and eat,” he said. “And I want the others to take a turn in here. We don’t have cameras or recording equipment, so I want everyone to see this thing,” he waved at the flashing, floating brain. “No one will believe us otherwise.”
-----
It was a while later when the Doctor opened his eyes. He let out an “Aargh!” and pulled at his hair, startling everyone.
Bill and Jute had switched out, and Pickles and Eula had traded places with Eldon. They were all sitting around, waiting.
“I can’t get in!” The Doctor yelled in frustration.
He stared up at all their startled faces.
Amy got up and brought him over a strip of jerky and a canteen. He ripped into the strip of meat and washed it down with a swig from the canteen. Amy handed Zeke a pemmican brick.
“What’s the problem, Doctor?” Rory asked.
The Doctor glowered and masticated his jerky, frowning like a sulky boy. He swallowed.
“The program is completely self-contained. There’s no way in, no password I can replicate. The original programmers, with their unique brainwave signatures, are long dead. I can’t reprogram it!” He jerked his jerky irritably over his shoulder at the Hanaii construct. Zeke, calmer now, slowly chewed his dry pemmican brick and watched.
Erik lifted his huge gun. “Then we blow it up.”
The Doctor waved that suggestion off. “It wouldn’t work, it’s energy, it’s tied into the very power sphere of the planet. You’d have to destroy the planet and every living thing on it.”
The Doctor got up and paced. Mumbling to himself and waving his jerky in counterpoint to his thoughts. The others watched, as colored lightning reflected on the crystal facets in the floor and bathed them all in shifting rainbow colors.
“What was it originally intended to do?” Erik asked, hoping some clarity would spark an idea.
The Doctor looked up. “It was designed to suppress, and suspend, those brainwaves and electrical impulses that lead to violent behavior. Not a bad aim in itself.”
“Then why does it affect inventors and artists?” Jute asked.
The Doctor kept circling. “Because what they forgot,” he said, gesturing with his hands. “Is that the brainwaves for violence, and inspiration are the same frequency.” He saw their disbelieving stares. “Oh, not in intent, but in form. It’s that huge surge of frantically intense and focused thought that they were targeting.” The Doctor demonstrated by squeezing his fingers together like a cage.
“But we’ve seen Trelwin behave violently,” Rory protested. “Chitchi saved me from that grub.”
The Doctor waved that off. “Self-defense instinct, the protection of self and self’s own, is a different thing. Besides, they’d be fools to mess with that.”
“It seems they were fools anyway,” Darvish said, resting his hands on the upturned hilt of his ax.
The Doctor looked up, then around at the deserted complex, the jungle and world by extension. He nodded, sadly. “The second they turned it on, they doomed themselves.”
“So how do we stop it?” Erik asked.
The Doctor turned and stared at the beautiful alien device. Each flash and zip of current representing another life turned off, another person possibly falling to his death from the very trees they called home.
He glared at it. Then abruptly his face went blank, his eyes flickered. Suddenly he started to grin. He turned to the others and rubbed his hands together.
“I’m going to bung a rock at it.”
Next Chapter
Previous Chapter
Chapter Index
Meter For Webpages
“What's Hanaii?” Amy demanded.
He turned and looked at them with an amazed look on his face, then immediately turned back to the “monster.”
“It’s Hanaii technology.” He waved a long, admiring hand at it. “The Hanaii were the most amazing energy engineers. They built the most fantastically complex machines out of pure energy.” He stepped forward and Rory grabbed him.
He looked back. “The Hanaii disappeared eons ago, back before Gallifrey even mastered time travel. We’d come across some of their technology once in a while, but no one ever knew what happened to them.”
“So, they were electrical engineers?” Rory asked, trying to get his mind around it.
The Doctor drooped and stared at him despairingly. “They weren’t electricians, Rory,” he said in disgust. “It’s not like wiring a toaster.”
Rory frowned and looked behind him, “Then why all the equipment?”
The Doctor shrugged, not looking, still mesmerized. “Even potters need a potter’s wheel.” He turned and looked at them, the flashing lights of the monster echoing in his eyes. “They still had to construct the devices, they didn’t just conjure it directly out of their heads. But once constructed, the devices were self-sustaining.”
The Doctor turned back to the machine with admiring eyes. “This, this takes unbelievable skill, and elegance.”
“Well, this elegant, machine of yours is killing people,” Amy said with dampening vehemence. “Can you switch it off?”
The Doctor stared at the scintillating brain for a few more minutes, then grinned, rubbing his hands together. “I can try.”
He turned and lifted his nonexistent eyebrows at them, eyes gleaming at the challenge; he dashed over to the undamaged wall of machines, he started cataloging, poking and prodding.
Amy turned around, watching him, and noticed Zeke, huddled against the back wall, shaking, staring at the giant brain with wide, terrified eyes. It was the most expression she’d ever seen out of a Trelwin. He stank not of tar, but of some stark, rancid, undertone, as if he was beyond terror and trying to be very quiet about it.
“What’s wrong with him?” she asked.
The Doctor glanced over, distractedly. “How would you feel if you suddenly came face to face with your people’s devil?”
Amy glared at him, and walked over to try and comfort the Trelwin.
There was a sudden shift, and rattle, and abruptly the entire far end of the rockslide tumbled down. The hunters jumped through, weapons raised, the pilot spark on the end of Jute’s flamethrower shone bright in the dust.
“What the hell?” Erik said. He stared at the glowing room, the crystal floor, and the bright, flashing, energy brain floating in the far room.
“What the bloody hell is going on here?” he boomed.
The Doctor spun around, waved an elegant hand, and said, “There, gentlemen, is your ‘monster’.”
Jute just stared, Eldon glared uncomprehendingly, Erik glowered and looked like he wanted to shoot something,
Darvish cocked his head and studied it, his eyes darting as he followed the zipping paths of multicolored lightning.
“What is it?” he asked.
“Rory,” the Doctor said. “Over to you.” He turned back to the equipment wall and went back to work.
Rory explained that it was an ancient bit of alien technology. The Doctor snorted at that bit of over-simplification.
“Can it see us?” Jute asked, keeping his flamethrower trained on it.
“No,” the Doctor said distractedly, still working the wall of machines, stretching up on tiptoe to reach the higher controls. “It’s just a machine. It’s doing whatever it was programmed to do.”
“And what’s that?” Darvish asked as he walked up beside him and studied the wall, with its strange conglomeration of melted metal swirls, buttons, levers and sliders.
“From the evidence,” the Doctor said, frowning as he traced long fingers over a section of swirl. “Some sort of brainwave modification.”
“Why would anyone do that?” Erik asked, annoyed.
The Doctor looked over his shoulder. “Who knows? Social experiment? Population control? Doomsday weapon? Could be anything.” He went back to tinkering.
“But why did it suddenly start to affect humans?” Eldon asked.
The Doctor didn’t bother to look around this time. “The transport.” He reached higher to manipulate another control, stretching on his toes. “The ‘deaths’ started happening just after the transport crashed into the building.” He came down off his toes and moved to another piece of equipment. He nodded distractedly over to the brain. “It must have thought it was being attacked. So it scanned the ‘aggressors’ and incorporated them into its program.”
He turned and looked at them with dark eyes. “I doubt they were killed by treecats, not by their positions and condition. Probably by the ghosts, or some variation of them.” He laid a hand down on a freestanding piece of equipment. “I’m going to need Zeke.”
They all snapped out of their listening trance.
Amy glanced up from the Trelwin. “I don’t think he’s in any condition to help,” she said.
The Doctor wandered over and hunkered down in front of the Trelwin. Zeke didn’t take his eyes off the ‘monster’.”
The Doctor slid a hand in front of his face and cut off his view. He apparently communicated something to the Trelwin. The elderly gray alien turned his eyes up to him, gradually his tension eased, the blankness of his expression returned. He stood up, all the way up.
All the humans stood back a bit in surprise. Standing, the Trelwin was seven feet tall, thin as a rake, and looked a lot like the ghostly apparitions that made up the electric fence.
Amy and Rory shared a wide-eyed glance.
The Doctor took the Trelwin’s hand and led him over to the machine.
-----
The Doctor led Zeke over to the control console, sat him down, and plugged him in. He sat down crosslegged in front of the crouching Trelwin. He rubbed his fingertips together. “This may take a while.”
He touched Zeke’s temples, and closed his eyes.
They all watched for a moment, they could see the Doctor’s eyes flickering rapidly behind his eyelids, but nothing else happened.
“Right!” Rory said, clapping his hands and startling everyone. “He’s going to be out of it for a while. We may as well make use of the time.”
Before Rory could suggest anything, Darvish’s stomach rumbled, loudly, like two dragons fighting. The short Safari leader looked down at his own midsection, then started laughing. He rubbed a long hand over his face.
“We may as well set up camp and eat,” he said. “And I want the others to take a turn in here. We don’t have cameras or recording equipment, so I want everyone to see this thing,” he waved at the flashing, floating brain. “No one will believe us otherwise.”
-----
It was a while later when the Doctor opened his eyes. He let out an “Aargh!” and pulled at his hair, startling everyone.
Bill and Jute had switched out, and Pickles and Eula had traded places with Eldon. They were all sitting around, waiting.
“I can’t get in!” The Doctor yelled in frustration.
He stared up at all their startled faces.
Amy got up and brought him over a strip of jerky and a canteen. He ripped into the strip of meat and washed it down with a swig from the canteen. Amy handed Zeke a pemmican brick.
“What’s the problem, Doctor?” Rory asked.
The Doctor glowered and masticated his jerky, frowning like a sulky boy. He swallowed.
“The program is completely self-contained. There’s no way in, no password I can replicate. The original programmers, with their unique brainwave signatures, are long dead. I can’t reprogram it!” He jerked his jerky irritably over his shoulder at the Hanaii construct. Zeke, calmer now, slowly chewed his dry pemmican brick and watched.
Erik lifted his huge gun. “Then we blow it up.”
The Doctor waved that suggestion off. “It wouldn’t work, it’s energy, it’s tied into the very power sphere of the planet. You’d have to destroy the planet and every living thing on it.”
The Doctor got up and paced. Mumbling to himself and waving his jerky in counterpoint to his thoughts. The others watched, as colored lightning reflected on the crystal facets in the floor and bathed them all in shifting rainbow colors.
“What was it originally intended to do?” Erik asked, hoping some clarity would spark an idea.
The Doctor looked up. “It was designed to suppress, and suspend, those brainwaves and electrical impulses that lead to violent behavior. Not a bad aim in itself.”
“Then why does it affect inventors and artists?” Jute asked.
The Doctor kept circling. “Because what they forgot,” he said, gesturing with his hands. “Is that the brainwaves for violence, and inspiration are the same frequency.” He saw their disbelieving stares. “Oh, not in intent, but in form. It’s that huge surge of frantically intense and focused thought that they were targeting.” The Doctor demonstrated by squeezing his fingers together like a cage.
“But we’ve seen Trelwin behave violently,” Rory protested. “Chitchi saved me from that grub.”
The Doctor waved that off. “Self-defense instinct, the protection of self and self’s own, is a different thing. Besides, they’d be fools to mess with that.”
“It seems they were fools anyway,” Darvish said, resting his hands on the upturned hilt of his ax.
The Doctor looked up, then around at the deserted complex, the jungle and world by extension. He nodded, sadly. “The second they turned it on, they doomed themselves.”
“So how do we stop it?” Erik asked.
The Doctor turned and stared at the beautiful alien device. Each flash and zip of current representing another life turned off, another person possibly falling to his death from the very trees they called home.
He glared at it. Then abruptly his face went blank, his eyes flickered. Suddenly he started to grin. He turned to the others and rubbed his hands together.
“I’m going to bung a rock at it.”
Next Chapter
Previous Chapter
Chapter Index
Meter For Webpages