tardis_stowaway (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
tardis_stowaway) wrote2007-10-22 12:00 am
tardis_stowaway) wrote2007-10-22 12:00 am
Entry tags:
Fic: Danger Shall Seem Sport (1/7)
Title: Danger Shall Seem Sport
Author:![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
tardis_stowaway
Rating: PG for a bit of language
Spoilers: Through Doomsday
Disclaimer: Want, can't take, don't have. The BBC owns 'em.
Story Summary: Rose and her alternate universe’s Doctor should really leave the adventure archeology to Indiana Jones. Exploring a ruined temple, they find unfinished business from the Time War that puts them in mortal peril in a basement (of course).
AN: This story is part of my Illyria series. The previous story is "What country, friends, is this?" Both this and WCFIT were originally published on Teaspoon, so the dates of these entries don't reflect the dates of original publication.
Chapter 1: Desert.
But, come what may, I do adore thee so,
That danger shall seem sport, and I will go. -Shakespeare, Twelfth Night, II.i
“Don’t people ever wonder what it sells tickets for? I mean, you can’t park in piers and carnivals all the time. Do you get people tapping at the window and trying to get service?” I inquired as the Doctor and I strode through the desert. After realizing that the TARDIS’s “malfunction” (if that circuit blew by chance then I’m a slitheen) had deposited us on an unknown planet with mysterious ruins, it had taken less than five minutes for me to fill up some canteens and drop my bag in my room. Once out of the TARDIS, I was so giddy to be traveling again that I began to tease the Doctor. It was just to see how he’d react–really, it was all in the name of science.
“Hey! It’s a great disguise! You’d have to be exceptionally daft to try to buy tickets when the sign says closed. People see that it’s closed, which makes it useless to them, and therefore most people don’t bother to think about whether it should be there at all. If they do want an explanation, you’d be surprised how many places people assume sell tickets if they’ve got a mysterious ticket booth sitting outside. People can be amazingly inventive when it comes to avoiding having to do any real thinking,” said the Doctor, just as defensive when someone insulted his precious box in this universe as the Doctor from my original universe. I smiled fondly.
“Well, good disguise or not, I like it,” I reassured him.
“The chameleon circuit’s broken where you come from too, right? What’s it look like there?” he asked.
“Big blue box sorta thing…it’s a police call box from the 1950s.”
“Oh, like that’s inconspicuous,” scoffed the Doctor.
“It is! It’s plain enough not to be interesting, official-looking enough that people assume they shouldn’t mess with it, and unfamiliar enough in most of the universe that nobody assumes they can get anything from it. Plus, it’s cute,” I explained. The Doctor looked unconvinced. I rolled my eyes and turned my attention to the landscape. We were in a desert. It wasn’t the ultra-barren kind with not a living thing to be seen on towering dunes of sand, although given how sharp most of the vegetation was I would almost have preferred that. Despite the heat, I was glad I was wearing jeans. The razor-edged dry grass, prickly shrubs, and cacti (technically not cacti at all but some totally alien thorny succulent, yet another example of the marvels of convergent evolution) caught at the hoodie tied around my waist and scraped every inch of bare skin they could find. Judging by the light and the way it just kept getting hotter as we walked, it was midmorning. We walked over a fairly flat sandy plain broken by the occasional dry gully and punctuated by red rocks sculpted by erosion into towering pillars and arches. It looked like pictures I’d seen of the American southwest (still hadn’t gotten there for real unless you count underground bunkers, which I don’t. Travel with the Doctor involved going to all sorts of great places and then spending more time running through nondescript corridors than sightseeing), but the purple hopping lizards suggested that we were nowhere on Earth.
“Any clue where we are?” I asked.
“Hmmm…if I had to guess, I’d say we’re in a desert somewhere. On a planet,” he announced.
“Very helpful, Mr. Encyclopedic Knowledge of Time and Space,” I said sarcastically.
“There are hundreds of worlds with this sort of landscape and biome!” he said indignantly. “The rotation’s slower than Earth, which means we’ll have plenty of daylight, but that doesn’t narrow it down much. I could figure it out if we took some biological samples back to the TARDIS for DNA testing, but I thought it would be more interesting to try eyeballing the architecture in those ruins.”
“If we ever get there,” I remarked, taking a small swig from my canteen. They were considerably farther away than they’d looked from the TARDIS. We trudged on in silence for a while. I was sweating, dusty, scratched up, and happier than I’d been in years. Three years, to be precise. It was good to once again be following that leather-jacketed form and not only for the aesthetic qualities of the rear view or his helpfulness in breaking a path. (How can he manage to wear that jacket in such heat? I know his internal body temperature is less than a human’s, but shouldn’t that mean he is even harder pressed to keep cool enough for all his cells to work? Time Lord physiology remains mysterious. Probably he’s just too stubborn to take it off.)
Eventually we reached the ruins. They were built of the same red rock that formed the natural pillars, but carved into regular blocks and polished smooth. Crumbled foundations spotted the landscape as far ahead as I could see with the occasional still-standing wall mixed in, but we went straight to the largest and most intact building. It was built of a darker shade of red than the surroundings, almost like dried blood. It looked like a temple but with all the spirituality of Soviet public housing. Its peaked roof reached towards the empty sky. The long sides’ walls bulged out below rows of small windows. The shorter side closest to us had stairs leading up to a porch where giant columns thicker than the two of us together could have wrapped our arms even halfway around held up an overhang. Behind the columns lay the building’s entrance, a massive pair of square doors carved out of black, shiny stone, possibly obsidian. Between the color scheme, the superhuman scale, and the sparse ornamentation, the whole assemblage was about as welcoming as a cactus is cuddly. In fact, it had a downright menacing aura. Of course the Doctor strode right up to the doors.
“Any ideas where we are yet?” I asked, mostly to break the oppressive silence of the ruins.
“None,” he said, but there was an edge to his voice that made me suspect that the actual answer was ‘none I like.’ That only ensured that we were going to have to enter, since the odor of trouble attracted the Doctor like the odor of rotting meat attracted flies. He tugged on a ring mounted on one of the doors. I went to give him a hand. Surprisingly enough, the door opened a crack with fairly minimal screeching and dragging considering its age and weight.
“Pretty easy to get in, “ I remarked, brushing my hair out of my face. The Doctor glanced at me, somehow managing to frown and look impressed at the same time. I hoped the frown was directed at the ruins and the impressed aspect directed at me, although with this universe’s Doctor I couldn’t quite be sure.
“A little too easy,” he said. Probably frowning at the ruins after all. “Something’s wrong here.”
“Are you talking about the door, the ugly architecture, or the fact that it’s the only building still standing in a ruined city?” I asked. The hairs on the back of my neck were starting to prickle despite the heat.
“I’m going with yes. Let’s start with the ruins. This building is a little worn around the edges, a few holes in the roof, but it’s miles better off than anything in sight. Why?” He was pacing now, in full detective mode. I loved watching him work.
“It’s built of a different stone. Maybe it’s just tougher?”
“Good thought, but look over there.” He stood beside me and pointed to a set of crumbling deep-red walls, then a separate wall the same color. “There were a few other buildings in this material, but only this one still stands. Why maintain only this building while the rest of the city decayed? Or why destroy the city but leave this standing?” I looked out at the sand and vanished city. You could make out the foundations of buildings except right near the remaining building, where there were just heaps of rubble, as if the crumbling walls had been cleared away.
“Or why,” I voiced my disquieting thought, “build just one giant new building in a destroyed city without rebuilding anything else?” The Doctor turned his pacing into a run down the steps so he could wave the sonic screwdriver over the more decrepit ruins, then back up the steps to wave the screwdriver at the building. I stayed standing near the door, which might be creepy but was emitting a cool draft.
“This building does seem to have been built after the rest was already falling down. Even if you’re on the lookout for discount real estate, that’s a bit extreme.” His expression of worry had deepened. He stalked towards the door. “I don’t think we’re going to learn anything more out here.”
I followed the Doctor inside, shivering slightly as I entered the dim interior. The strangely empty hall was far too large for the small windows high overhead to illuminate properly. The color scheme matched the outside: deep red walls and floor with black pillars. Enormous iron chandeliers with burnt-out candle stubs cast spidery shadows. Most were near the distant ceiling, but one chandelier had ripped its hangings partway out of the ceiling and now dangled crookedly not far overhead. The walls to my left and right were broken by numerous openings into darkness, presumably unlit side rooms. A thick coat of dust covered the stone floor, mixed in with shards of glass from the broken windows and droppings, perhaps from some birds taking advantage of those windows. At the far end of the hall, nearly the length of a football pitch away, there was a hefty stone slab, perhaps an altar or table. High above that altar, the opposite wall was decorated with black tiles set into the red stone, forming angular alien script. Thanks to the TARDIS, I could read it: Entropy is order. Huh?
The Doctor gazed towards that wall, hands clenched into fists at his sides. He was utterly still. When I moved to stand beside him, the stricken expression he bore was far more frightening than the brooding ruins. His wide eyes stared straight through the wall as if at some horror a million miles or a million years away. I reached out to lay my hand on his shoulder, and he jumped wildly at my touch. He whipped around to face me, the haunted look shifting into a particularly grim version of what I privately called his Oncoming Storm Face, all implacable power. One look at the ancient eyes beneath those furrowed brows when he was in this state and I wondered how anyone ever mistook him for human.
“Rose, get out of here!”
“What’s going on?” I hadn’t seen or heard any source of immediate danger, although at his slightly raised voice I thought I heard faint rustling sounds, as if something (or several somethings) stirred in the darkened side rooms. My heartbeat quickened.
“This place is dangerous. It shouldn’t be here, but it is, meaning you need to leave. Now!”
“What about you? You got a plan?”
“I’m staying. You just go!” He jabbed his finger towards the door. His anxiety was contagious, but not so much that I was going to abandon him without knowing what was happening, especially not when he ordered me around like a child.
“If it’s going to kill us right away then you should leave with me. Otherwise, you can bloody well take one minute to tell me what I’m running from!” My voice set off the rustling again, which was almost enough to make me reconsider my choice. The Doctor grabbed by hand and pulled me out of the door and down the steps, but instead of chasing me away he leaned close to my ear.
“Do you know what my people fought in the Time War?” he whispered.
“Daleks?” I whispered back, biting my lip as my eyes flicked towards the temple. This didn’t look like the Daleks’ architectural style, although I only had the insides of their spaceships to go from. Somehow they just didn’t seem like the types to build something so large without obvious purpose.
“They were the worst, the cause of the war, but they were not alone. Daleks scorn other life too much to accept allies, but that didn’t stop some of those others from supporting the Daleks anyway. Most just found the Daleks convenient distraction from their own conquest schemes, but the Ruacmord were different. They wanted the Daleks to exterminate everything, and they did plenty of exterminating of their own. The Ruacmord were not a species of alien but an apocalypse cult with members from dozens of species. When I…when the Time War ended they were destroyed, along with the Daleks and the Time Lords. When I say destroyed, I mean obliterated throughout all of time and space along with everything they built. Exterminated. There shouldn’t be so much as a candy bar wrapper left from them. My people died so nobody would ever have to fear them again, but here we are standing beside what is clearly a Ruacmord temple. If you aren’t frightened enough to leave now, there is something very, very wrong with you.” He was so close I could feel his warm breath puffing against my ear. I shivered.
“That is bad, bad news. I’m still sticking with you. Never said I was entirely right in the head.” I wanted to tell him that I’d faced down Daleks, even their Emperor, and come out alive, so I’d cope with the Daleks’ murderous entourage if I had to. However, reading between the lines of what the Doctor said, it sounded as if this universe had not yet introduced him to any Dalek survivors of the Time War. Perhaps they were really gone here, but I wouldn’t bet on it, and I’m sure he wouldn’t either if he knew I’d met them. The Doctor was quite upset enough without possible Daleks.
“‘Entropy is order.’ That’s the Ruacmond motto. Do you know what that means?” he asked. I got the sense that the subject of why I should leave was not abandoned for good, but I was happy for a temporary respite from justifying my presence. For a moment I missed the camaraderie of my Torchwood coworkers. There, I was a valid part of the team. Well, my Dad had been known to try to keep me out of dangerous situations, but he’d long since figured out that not assigning me a mission I really wanted usually just meant I got involved during my off time without proper backup.
“Entropy…doesn’t that mean chaos?” I reached for my distant memories of physics class, when I’d been far more interested in passing flirty notes to Jimmy Stone than anything the teacher said. “That motto’s some sort of deliberate paradox.”
“Yes and no. Entropy is often thought of as chaos, but a more precise definition is the unavailability of energy in a system to do work. In a closed system, entropy inevitably increases. An ice cube in a sealed warm room melts, leaving room-temperature water. No change in the total energy in the room, but the room has more entropy because–here’s the key–there’s less difference. When the universe winds down, so far in the future even Time Lords can’t be sure, it may be because entropy reaches its maximum and all energy become uselessly homogenized. Life fights against entropy, using energy from light or chemicals to build more complex molecules, creatures, civilizations, and so forth. The Ruacmord look at the diversity and intricacy of living things and they see instability. They hope to bring order to the universe by destroying all life.”
“Sound like charming people you’d love to have over for tea. Do you think they destroyed the city?” I tried to keep my tone flippant despite a feeling of foreboding. Another day, another bone-shaking terror.
“Probably. Every time they need to act against entropy, they make more somewhere else. To build one temple they raze a city. If they want to have a baby the parents commit at least two murders.”
“Do you think any of them are still hiding in there?”
“That’s what I’m going to find out.”
“You seem to be having pronoun problems again, Doctor. That’s what we’re going to find out.”
“Rose,” he said in exasperation, “we’ve been through this. You can’t…”
“Yes I can,” I interrupted him. “Look, I’m good with the TARDIS, but not good enough to get home alone. If you get yourself trapped or killed beyond regenerating, I’m stranded. I don’t fancy becoming a wild woman of the desert when the TARDIS food supplies run out or the water purification system breaks down. Even if you return okay, I could get into all sort of trouble just walking across the desert alone. Have I told you yet about the time your counterpart let me out of his sight for a few minutes and I ended up dangling from a barrage balloon hundreds of feet above London in the middle of a German air raid?” If he wasn’t ready to accept me as a partner, I could play damsel in distress with the best of them.
“What?! How? On second thought, I don’t want to know.”
“Did I mention I was wearing a Union Jack t-shirt at the time?” I batted my eyelashes, and the Doctor put his hand to his forehead and shook his head.
“Fine. Come along where I can keep an eye on you,” he grumbled, stalking up the steps. He stopped and ordered, “Just stay close to me.” I hurried along behind him, but he whipped around again. “And don’t touch anything!” I smiled and grabbed his hand.
“Whatever you say, Doctor.” He gave me an exasperated look, which I probably deserved. OK, definitely deserved, but I was still right.
Author:
tardis_stowaway Rating: PG for a bit of language
Spoilers: Through Doomsday
Disclaimer: Want, can't take, don't have. The BBC owns 'em.
Story Summary: Rose and her alternate universe’s Doctor should really leave the adventure archeology to Indiana Jones. Exploring a ruined temple, they find unfinished business from the Time War that puts them in mortal peril in a basement (of course).
AN: This story is part of my Illyria series. The previous story is "What country, friends, is this?" Both this and WCFIT were originally published on Teaspoon, so the dates of these entries don't reflect the dates of original publication.
Chapter 1: Desert.
In which Rose asks many questions and the Doctor has an unpleasant surprise.
But, come what may, I do adore thee so,
That danger shall seem sport, and I will go. -Shakespeare, Twelfth Night, II.i
“Don’t people ever wonder what it sells tickets for? I mean, you can’t park in piers and carnivals all the time. Do you get people tapping at the window and trying to get service?” I inquired as the Doctor and I strode through the desert. After realizing that the TARDIS’s “malfunction” (if that circuit blew by chance then I’m a slitheen) had deposited us on an unknown planet with mysterious ruins, it had taken less than five minutes for me to fill up some canteens and drop my bag in my room. Once out of the TARDIS, I was so giddy to be traveling again that I began to tease the Doctor. It was just to see how he’d react–really, it was all in the name of science.
“Hey! It’s a great disguise! You’d have to be exceptionally daft to try to buy tickets when the sign says closed. People see that it’s closed, which makes it useless to them, and therefore most people don’t bother to think about whether it should be there at all. If they do want an explanation, you’d be surprised how many places people assume sell tickets if they’ve got a mysterious ticket booth sitting outside. People can be amazingly inventive when it comes to avoiding having to do any real thinking,” said the Doctor, just as defensive when someone insulted his precious box in this universe as the Doctor from my original universe. I smiled fondly.
“Well, good disguise or not, I like it,” I reassured him.
“The chameleon circuit’s broken where you come from too, right? What’s it look like there?” he asked.
“Big blue box sorta thing…it’s a police call box from the 1950s.”
“Oh, like that’s inconspicuous,” scoffed the Doctor.
“It is! It’s plain enough not to be interesting, official-looking enough that people assume they shouldn’t mess with it, and unfamiliar enough in most of the universe that nobody assumes they can get anything from it. Plus, it’s cute,” I explained. The Doctor looked unconvinced. I rolled my eyes and turned my attention to the landscape. We were in a desert. It wasn’t the ultra-barren kind with not a living thing to be seen on towering dunes of sand, although given how sharp most of the vegetation was I would almost have preferred that. Despite the heat, I was glad I was wearing jeans. The razor-edged dry grass, prickly shrubs, and cacti (technically not cacti at all but some totally alien thorny succulent, yet another example of the marvels of convergent evolution) caught at the hoodie tied around my waist and scraped every inch of bare skin they could find. Judging by the light and the way it just kept getting hotter as we walked, it was midmorning. We walked over a fairly flat sandy plain broken by the occasional dry gully and punctuated by red rocks sculpted by erosion into towering pillars and arches. It looked like pictures I’d seen of the American southwest (still hadn’t gotten there for real unless you count underground bunkers, which I don’t. Travel with the Doctor involved going to all sorts of great places and then spending more time running through nondescript corridors than sightseeing), but the purple hopping lizards suggested that we were nowhere on Earth.
“Any clue where we are?” I asked.
“Hmmm…if I had to guess, I’d say we’re in a desert somewhere. On a planet,” he announced.
“Very helpful, Mr. Encyclopedic Knowledge of Time and Space,” I said sarcastically.
“There are hundreds of worlds with this sort of landscape and biome!” he said indignantly. “The rotation’s slower than Earth, which means we’ll have plenty of daylight, but that doesn’t narrow it down much. I could figure it out if we took some biological samples back to the TARDIS for DNA testing, but I thought it would be more interesting to try eyeballing the architecture in those ruins.”
“If we ever get there,” I remarked, taking a small swig from my canteen. They were considerably farther away than they’d looked from the TARDIS. We trudged on in silence for a while. I was sweating, dusty, scratched up, and happier than I’d been in years. Three years, to be precise. It was good to once again be following that leather-jacketed form and not only for the aesthetic qualities of the rear view or his helpfulness in breaking a path. (How can he manage to wear that jacket in such heat? I know his internal body temperature is less than a human’s, but shouldn’t that mean he is even harder pressed to keep cool enough for all his cells to work? Time Lord physiology remains mysterious. Probably he’s just too stubborn to take it off.)
Eventually we reached the ruins. They were built of the same red rock that formed the natural pillars, but carved into regular blocks and polished smooth. Crumbled foundations spotted the landscape as far ahead as I could see with the occasional still-standing wall mixed in, but we went straight to the largest and most intact building. It was built of a darker shade of red than the surroundings, almost like dried blood. It looked like a temple but with all the spirituality of Soviet public housing. Its peaked roof reached towards the empty sky. The long sides’ walls bulged out below rows of small windows. The shorter side closest to us had stairs leading up to a porch where giant columns thicker than the two of us together could have wrapped our arms even halfway around held up an overhang. Behind the columns lay the building’s entrance, a massive pair of square doors carved out of black, shiny stone, possibly obsidian. Between the color scheme, the superhuman scale, and the sparse ornamentation, the whole assemblage was about as welcoming as a cactus is cuddly. In fact, it had a downright menacing aura. Of course the Doctor strode right up to the doors.
“Any ideas where we are yet?” I asked, mostly to break the oppressive silence of the ruins.
“None,” he said, but there was an edge to his voice that made me suspect that the actual answer was ‘none I like.’ That only ensured that we were going to have to enter, since the odor of trouble attracted the Doctor like the odor of rotting meat attracted flies. He tugged on a ring mounted on one of the doors. I went to give him a hand. Surprisingly enough, the door opened a crack with fairly minimal screeching and dragging considering its age and weight.
“Pretty easy to get in, “ I remarked, brushing my hair out of my face. The Doctor glanced at me, somehow managing to frown and look impressed at the same time. I hoped the frown was directed at the ruins and the impressed aspect directed at me, although with this universe’s Doctor I couldn’t quite be sure.
“A little too easy,” he said. Probably frowning at the ruins after all. “Something’s wrong here.”
“Are you talking about the door, the ugly architecture, or the fact that it’s the only building still standing in a ruined city?” I asked. The hairs on the back of my neck were starting to prickle despite the heat.
“I’m going with yes. Let’s start with the ruins. This building is a little worn around the edges, a few holes in the roof, but it’s miles better off than anything in sight. Why?” He was pacing now, in full detective mode. I loved watching him work.
“It’s built of a different stone. Maybe it’s just tougher?”
“Good thought, but look over there.” He stood beside me and pointed to a set of crumbling deep-red walls, then a separate wall the same color. “There were a few other buildings in this material, but only this one still stands. Why maintain only this building while the rest of the city decayed? Or why destroy the city but leave this standing?” I looked out at the sand and vanished city. You could make out the foundations of buildings except right near the remaining building, where there were just heaps of rubble, as if the crumbling walls had been cleared away.
“Or why,” I voiced my disquieting thought, “build just one giant new building in a destroyed city without rebuilding anything else?” The Doctor turned his pacing into a run down the steps so he could wave the sonic screwdriver over the more decrepit ruins, then back up the steps to wave the screwdriver at the building. I stayed standing near the door, which might be creepy but was emitting a cool draft.
“This building does seem to have been built after the rest was already falling down. Even if you’re on the lookout for discount real estate, that’s a bit extreme.” His expression of worry had deepened. He stalked towards the door. “I don’t think we’re going to learn anything more out here.”
I followed the Doctor inside, shivering slightly as I entered the dim interior. The strangely empty hall was far too large for the small windows high overhead to illuminate properly. The color scheme matched the outside: deep red walls and floor with black pillars. Enormous iron chandeliers with burnt-out candle stubs cast spidery shadows. Most were near the distant ceiling, but one chandelier had ripped its hangings partway out of the ceiling and now dangled crookedly not far overhead. The walls to my left and right were broken by numerous openings into darkness, presumably unlit side rooms. A thick coat of dust covered the stone floor, mixed in with shards of glass from the broken windows and droppings, perhaps from some birds taking advantage of those windows. At the far end of the hall, nearly the length of a football pitch away, there was a hefty stone slab, perhaps an altar or table. High above that altar, the opposite wall was decorated with black tiles set into the red stone, forming angular alien script. Thanks to the TARDIS, I could read it: Entropy is order. Huh?
The Doctor gazed towards that wall, hands clenched into fists at his sides. He was utterly still. When I moved to stand beside him, the stricken expression he bore was far more frightening than the brooding ruins. His wide eyes stared straight through the wall as if at some horror a million miles or a million years away. I reached out to lay my hand on his shoulder, and he jumped wildly at my touch. He whipped around to face me, the haunted look shifting into a particularly grim version of what I privately called his Oncoming Storm Face, all implacable power. One look at the ancient eyes beneath those furrowed brows when he was in this state and I wondered how anyone ever mistook him for human.
“Rose, get out of here!”
“What’s going on?” I hadn’t seen or heard any source of immediate danger, although at his slightly raised voice I thought I heard faint rustling sounds, as if something (or several somethings) stirred in the darkened side rooms. My heartbeat quickened.
“This place is dangerous. It shouldn’t be here, but it is, meaning you need to leave. Now!”
“What about you? You got a plan?”
“I’m staying. You just go!” He jabbed his finger towards the door. His anxiety was contagious, but not so much that I was going to abandon him without knowing what was happening, especially not when he ordered me around like a child.
“If it’s going to kill us right away then you should leave with me. Otherwise, you can bloody well take one minute to tell me what I’m running from!” My voice set off the rustling again, which was almost enough to make me reconsider my choice. The Doctor grabbed by hand and pulled me out of the door and down the steps, but instead of chasing me away he leaned close to my ear.
“Do you know what my people fought in the Time War?” he whispered.
“Daleks?” I whispered back, biting my lip as my eyes flicked towards the temple. This didn’t look like the Daleks’ architectural style, although I only had the insides of their spaceships to go from. Somehow they just didn’t seem like the types to build something so large without obvious purpose.
“They were the worst, the cause of the war, but they were not alone. Daleks scorn other life too much to accept allies, but that didn’t stop some of those others from supporting the Daleks anyway. Most just found the Daleks convenient distraction from their own conquest schemes, but the Ruacmord were different. They wanted the Daleks to exterminate everything, and they did plenty of exterminating of their own. The Ruacmord were not a species of alien but an apocalypse cult with members from dozens of species. When I…when the Time War ended they were destroyed, along with the Daleks and the Time Lords. When I say destroyed, I mean obliterated throughout all of time and space along with everything they built. Exterminated. There shouldn’t be so much as a candy bar wrapper left from them. My people died so nobody would ever have to fear them again, but here we are standing beside what is clearly a Ruacmord temple. If you aren’t frightened enough to leave now, there is something very, very wrong with you.” He was so close I could feel his warm breath puffing against my ear. I shivered.
“That is bad, bad news. I’m still sticking with you. Never said I was entirely right in the head.” I wanted to tell him that I’d faced down Daleks, even their Emperor, and come out alive, so I’d cope with the Daleks’ murderous entourage if I had to. However, reading between the lines of what the Doctor said, it sounded as if this universe had not yet introduced him to any Dalek survivors of the Time War. Perhaps they were really gone here, but I wouldn’t bet on it, and I’m sure he wouldn’t either if he knew I’d met them. The Doctor was quite upset enough without possible Daleks.
“‘Entropy is order.’ That’s the Ruacmond motto. Do you know what that means?” he asked. I got the sense that the subject of why I should leave was not abandoned for good, but I was happy for a temporary respite from justifying my presence. For a moment I missed the camaraderie of my Torchwood coworkers. There, I was a valid part of the team. Well, my Dad had been known to try to keep me out of dangerous situations, but he’d long since figured out that not assigning me a mission I really wanted usually just meant I got involved during my off time without proper backup.
“Entropy…doesn’t that mean chaos?” I reached for my distant memories of physics class, when I’d been far more interested in passing flirty notes to Jimmy Stone than anything the teacher said. “That motto’s some sort of deliberate paradox.”
“Yes and no. Entropy is often thought of as chaos, but a more precise definition is the unavailability of energy in a system to do work. In a closed system, entropy inevitably increases. An ice cube in a sealed warm room melts, leaving room-temperature water. No change in the total energy in the room, but the room has more entropy because–here’s the key–there’s less difference. When the universe winds down, so far in the future even Time Lords can’t be sure, it may be because entropy reaches its maximum and all energy become uselessly homogenized. Life fights against entropy, using energy from light or chemicals to build more complex molecules, creatures, civilizations, and so forth. The Ruacmord look at the diversity and intricacy of living things and they see instability. They hope to bring order to the universe by destroying all life.”
“Sound like charming people you’d love to have over for tea. Do you think they destroyed the city?” I tried to keep my tone flippant despite a feeling of foreboding. Another day, another bone-shaking terror.
“Probably. Every time they need to act against entropy, they make more somewhere else. To build one temple they raze a city. If they want to have a baby the parents commit at least two murders.”
“Do you think any of them are still hiding in there?”
“That’s what I’m going to find out.”
“You seem to be having pronoun problems again, Doctor. That’s what we’re going to find out.”
“Rose,” he said in exasperation, “we’ve been through this. You can’t…”
“Yes I can,” I interrupted him. “Look, I’m good with the TARDIS, but not good enough to get home alone. If you get yourself trapped or killed beyond regenerating, I’m stranded. I don’t fancy becoming a wild woman of the desert when the TARDIS food supplies run out or the water purification system breaks down. Even if you return okay, I could get into all sort of trouble just walking across the desert alone. Have I told you yet about the time your counterpart let me out of his sight for a few minutes and I ended up dangling from a barrage balloon hundreds of feet above London in the middle of a German air raid?” If he wasn’t ready to accept me as a partner, I could play damsel in distress with the best of them.
“What?! How? On second thought, I don’t want to know.”
“Did I mention I was wearing a Union Jack t-shirt at the time?” I batted my eyelashes, and the Doctor put his hand to his forehead and shook his head.
“Fine. Come along where I can keep an eye on you,” he grumbled, stalking up the steps. He stopped and ordered, “Just stay close to me.” I hurried along behind him, but he whipped around again. “And don’t touch anything!” I smiled and grabbed his hand.
“Whatever you say, Doctor.” He gave me an exasperated look, which I probably deserved. OK, definitely deserved, but I was still right.