ARC OF DISCOVERY
In a flurry, the Doctor burst into the Inn. He breezed past the old woman, heading straight for the room he had rented. There he laid Adric out on the double-sized bed, bundled his coat and scarf in a pile to prop his legs up and began assessing the boy’s injuries. There were severe burns on his hands, arms and back and potentially deeper electrical ones beneath the skin.
“I need clean, cool cloths!” the Doctor said, gently edging the burned fabric of Adric’s tunic aside where he could. “A pitcher of cold water and scissors!”
He turned to look over his shoulder, not hearing any noise in response and realized dimly that no one had followed him back to the Inn. Evan hadn’t even arrived yet with Romana. He pushed to his feet. “I’ll be right back, Adric.” He pulled the bed sheet over the boy before he left.
Stalking into the main room he found the old woman and grabbed her firmly by the arm. “My friend is very badly injured in there,” he said darkly. “I need you to get me some supplies.”
After relaying his list of needs to her, he returned to Adric, doing the best he could to make the boy comfortable. He hoped that the Alzarian didn’t go into shock and that his innate superior healing skills would kick in sooner rather than later.
The old woman returned with the supplies the Doctor needed and he tended to Adric as best he could. The supplies were rudimentary at best and the degree of Adric’s injuries was hard to assess. After tearing up an extra bed sheet and carefully dressing all of Adric’s wounds, the Doctor sensed he was being watched. Turning, he found Romana leaning against the doorframe studying him.
Her hands had been wrapped in white gauze and her hair pulled into a ponytail back from her face. Her clothing was singed but she looked none-the-worse for the wear. “How is he?” she asked, aware she’d finally caught the Doctor’s attention.
“Alive,” the Doctor replied, pushing to his feet. He wiped his hands off on a towel. “What happened back there?”
“Adric tried to reprogram the system, to fix the weather inconsistencies. When he took it offline, he realized the mainframe was connected to all the generators on the planet. It overwhelmed him and the generator had a melt down.” She tilted her head, looking at the boy resting on the bed. “He was very brave.”
“Mmm,” the Doctor mused. “He always has been,” he agreed. “Foolish, at times, but brave.”
Romana smiled. “Sounds like someone else I know.” Her eyes flickered back to the Doctor pointedly.
Ignoring the comparison, the Doctor looked out the door into the main hall. “Where has that Evan man gone to? I’d like to have a word with him about his lack of hospitality! Not to mention the dangers lurking in this town. They need to be warned about other generators.”
“I’ll see if I can find him,” Romana said. She departed, leaving the Doctor behind to sit back down on his stool beside Adric’s bed.
Dipping a spare rag into the water pitcher, the Doctor gently brushed Adric’s hair back from his brow before placing the cool compress against his sallow forehead. The last thing he needed was for Adric to go into shock. “Adric?” he softly said. “Are you awake? You’ve got to drink, you know.”
Slowly, Adric opened his eyes. He stared unseeing for several seconds up at the ceiling. Then he blinked as his sight returned. Turning his head he focused on the Doctor and was met with a toothy grin. It was hard not to smile back, despite his pain. “Hello, Doctor.”
“How are you feeling?” he asked.
“Tired,” he admitted. “And I hurt,” he added, looking away somewhat shamed.
The Doctor held up a glass of water to him. “Drink some. Best to keep hydrated. You’ve had quite a nasty shock and the water will boost your body’s ability to heal itself.” He had to hold the glass to Adric’s lips, but the boy drank gratefully.
Once the glass was drained, Adric looked considerably better. His gaze flitted across the room before settling at last on the Doctor again. “Where’s Romana? Is she all right?”
“A few burns but I’m confident she’ll make a full recovery. She’s outside, talking with our friend Evan.” He pushed to his feet, going to peek out the door.
“Doctor?”
He turned back to Adric. “Yes?”
“Thank you.”
“Whatever for?” he asked, returning to the bed.
Adric’s gaze was full of warmth and admiration, tinged, perhaps, with awe. “You had to choose between us,” he began. “I can’t believe you—”
“Master!” K-9 interrupted, wheeling into the room.
“Hello there, K-9!” the Doctor announced. “Everything all right?”
“Negative, Master.”
“Oh? What’s wrong?”
The sound of footfalls on the Inn floorboards announced Romana’s return. Her face was drawn as she stepped inside, looking between her two companions. “We’ve got a bit of a problem,” she announced. She ran her bandaged hands through her hair, loosening much of it from the ponytail it had been collected into. “Needa is a planet with a very violent natural weather pattern. Apparently the government saw fit to install those weather regulators and then abandoned the townsfolk to the wilds, trusting the generators to work forever. With it offline now, the natural forces are returning.”
“More snow?” Adric asked.
Romana shook her head. “It’s much worse than that. Doctor, there’s a hurricane brewing out on the ocean. A massive wind funnel is forming and no one here knows what to make of it. They’re all running to the beach to gawk at it like children. If it comes ashore, it will devastate this town.”
“Well, we can’t let that happen,” the Doctor mused. “You’ll have to go warn them—tell them to get underground, if they can, or up in the mountains. They should be safe there.”
“Shouldn’t we go back to the TARDIS?” Adric asked.
“It’s much too far right now,” the Doctor said. “Especially with you in your state.”
“Well, we can’t stay here,” Romana said. “These buildings are hardly structured to stand up to hurricane-winds. You’d both be blown away.”
“Are hurricanes really that bad?” Adric said.
“Oh, they’re not so terrible,” the Doctor said, reassuringly. “Romana,” he added, “go take our friend Evan and see if you can’t find a shelter. There’s little we can do until we have a place to relocate.”
“Yes, Doctor,” she said, turning to depart.
The Doctor settled beside Adric again, grinning. “Now, how about a game to help keep your mind off the pain? I’ve another numbers game I learned as a boy on Gallifrey.” Despite the danger lurking just outside the Inn, he was determined to keep Adric calm for as long as possible.
Adric resettled himself on the pillows, listening to the Doctor explain the new game with great interest.
--
Squinting into the gale that was starting up, Romana addressed Evan. “You’re certain these caves will be big enough to house everyone in the village?”
Evan stood beside her, his face grave. His clothing still bore signs of soot from his efforts in dousing the fire caused by the generator explosion. “There is enough room,” he stoically said.
Pulling her eyes off the waterspout in the distance, Romana focused on him. “I’m sorry you’re going to have to experience this. It wasn’t our intention when we arrived.”
“What was?” Evan asked.
Romana let her eyes glide back to the water. She held one hand to her hair, keeping it from blowing into her face. “Exploration, I suppose.” She managed a smile. “And we did find something worth seeing. My friend is hurt though,” she looked back to him. “We’ll need help moving him to the caves.”
This time, Evan looked away from her. “You brought this to us,” he said with a nod to the waterspout. “You have destroyed this town.”
“Whoever built those generators destroyed this town. This planet never should have been settled,” she countered.
Evan remained silent for several seconds. “You should leave,” he said at last.
“We intend to, once the storm has cleared.”
“You should leave now.”
“We can’t. As I said, my friend is very badly hurt. We’re wasting time talking about this. I need help moving him to the caves, where he’ll be safe.”
“We don’t wish to be burdened by you or your friends anymore,” Evan said.
Romana’s eyes narrowed. “You’re saying we’re not welcome at the caves?”
“You’re not welcome at the caves,” Evan stated bluntly.
“After I told you where to go, and how to survive the hurricane, you’re denying shelter to me and my friends?” Her tone was incredulous.
“You brought this storm down upon us. You should have to suffer its wrath.” He turned away quickly from her, letting the wind push him along.
“What a waste of time that was,” Romana said to herself. She turned to look back to the waterspout before letting her eyes survey the area. Many of the buildings had already begun to lose shingles off their roofs. There wasn’t any more time to waste—she had to get back to the Doctor and Adric and warn them.
Pushing into the Inn, she noticed the old lady had abandoned her post. The door hung open, banging loudly against the wall as the wind tugged at it. It was impossible to wrangle shut, so she ignored it, trudging on to the back room. In the doorway to the room she stopped, pausing to watch the Doctor and Adric.
Despite the raging storm outside, the two were engaged in a complicated word game that required the first player to build a word off the second player by rearranging the letters of the first word, and adding additional letters by computing equations built from the numerical value of the letters, condensed down to their smallest variables. Although the door continued to bang loudly in the hall, the room the Doctor and Adric occupied seemed warm and peaceful still.
“Problem?” the Doctor asked without looking up.
“Problem,” Adric repeated. “Nine: I.” He thought for a second, and then cheerfully said, “Limb repo!”
“No, no,” the Doctor chided. “Romana’s got a problem for us.”
Looking up, Adric noticed Romana at last. “Oh. What’s wrong?”
Feeling terrible being the bearer of bad news, Romana sighed. “Evan has found a cave for the townsfolk to stay in. They should be safe there,” she prefaced. “However, they’ve decided we’ve caused enough trouble already, and we’re not welcome.”
The Doctor made a face, displeased with the news. His eyes drifted back to Adric, lingering on the boy’s gauze covered wounds. “We won’t be able to make it to the TARDIS in time,” he said.
“Won’t the mountains protect us?” Adric asked.
“They might,” the Doctor said. “But I’m not sure that’s a risk I’m willing to take, especially not with you in this condition. You shouldn’t be moved at all.”
“Well, we haven’t got much choice,” Romana protested. “By the looks of things, that waterspout is going to come to land within minutes, and this Inn is not going to last.”
“Couldn’t we just go behind the hurricane?” Adric asked. “If it’s got a forward momentum, being behind it should be safe.”
“You can’t just predict a hurricane’s path,” Romana said. “Depending on what it encounters, it could veer back into what you thought was a safe zone.”
“But if you could predict it,” Adric intently said, sitting up. “It would work, wouldn’t it?”
“Yes, but—” Romana began.
“Tut-tut!” the Doctor said, waving a hand at her to shush her. “What are you thinking, Adric?”
“If I can get the variables Romana spoke of, I’m sure I could predict the path of the hurricane. It’s just a mathematical equation, after all.”
“That’s impossible,” Romana retorted. “Even if you had those variables, what good would it possibly do? The debris churned out from a hurricane would be just as devastating as encountering it head on.”
“Mirror equations!” Adric shouted. “Once I have all the variables figured out I can use the mirror equation the Doctor taught me earlier to figure out the safest path around the hurricane. It isn’t hard to consider all the variables, not if you’ve got a practical application for the maths!”
“Quick Romana,” the Doctor said, eyes on Adric, “fetch the boy a pencil and paper! K-9!”
“Yes, Master?”
“What’s the current wind velocity of the storm outside?” he asked.
K-9 began to rattle off a wind factor. Romana pulled a pad of paper and a pencil from the Doctor’s coat, which was still piled beneath Adric’s feet on the bed. As soon as he had it, Adric began to write. It was clear his hands hurt him terribly to use, but he suffered on. He asked questions of K-9 and began sketching diagrams to demonstrate trajectory.
By the time he finished, the Inn was shuddering with the force of the winds. “We’ve got to go to the shore!” Adric shouted.
“Absurd!” Romana yelled.
“No time to argue,” the Doctor said. He quickly donned his coat and scarf and without further ado, scooped Adric up in his arms. “Which way?” Adric seemed momentarily stunned at the action, and then pointed needlessly toward the open door. “Come on, Romana!”
“This is insane!” Romana shouted, following them out into the storm. The sky was now black with clouds and heavy, whipping rain fell from above.
Adric pointed through the storm, confirming with his paper the exact location he’d worked out to be safe. He adjusted, mentally, as they moved, calculating new variables as they encountered them. The rain lashed at them, diminishing their sight, but the Doctor trudged on, following Adric’s directions without question.
Romana and K-9 hurried after them, the former continually looking up into the waterspout in fear and noticing that they were traveling further and further from the TARDIS.
At last they reached a spot where Adric cried, “Here!”
The rain continued to drive into them but they seemed relatively out of the path of the hurricane. No trees or buildings sheltered them, so they were still at the mercy of the wind. The Doctor huddled down, shielding Adric the best he could with his body. Romana pressed in close to them as well, realizing dimly that being out in the open like this gave them the greatest chance of not getting hit by flying debris—they weren’t near anything. “Absurd!” she shouted again, but the roaring of the wind drowned her voice out instantly.
The Doctor threw one arm out over Romana’s shoulder to draw her closer. Just as he did a palm frond came ripping through the air at them, striking the Doctor on the back. He rocked forward, taking the brunt of the impact.
“K-9!” Romana cried, lifting her eyes to see the robotic dog rolling away. “K-9, come back!”
“Sensors indicate superior shelter area just ahead, Mistress!” K-9 announced, but his voice was hard to hear over the roaring of the wind.
“If he goes into the water, he’ll short out!” Romana cried.
“Nothing to be done for it now,” the Doctor chided. “How are you doing, Adric?”
“I’ve been better,” he replied sounding pained.
The Doctor lifted his eyes to assess K-9’s success, but the dog had already rolled out of sight.
The three huddled there together for what seemed like hours. For the most part the Doctor managed to shield his companions with his larger frame, taking damage from the rare bit of flying debris that came their way. Still the rain poured down, whipping into them with the wind. It took very little time before both Adric and Romana, who weren’t as well dressed or insulated, were shivering.
Just as Romana was ready to surge to her feet and exclaim that she couldn’t take it anymore, she spied K-9 making his way back over to them, rocking as he buffered against the gale.
“Suitable location secured, Master!” K-9 said when he was close enough to be heard.
“Thank Rassilon!” Romana cried.
The Doctor gave a grunt and pulled to his feet. He readjusted his scarf and then bent to pick up Adric. “Doing all right still?” he cheerfully asked.
“Yes,” Adric said, though his teeth chattered.
“Lead on, K-9!”
--
The cave was very shallow but had a considerable overhang that shielded the interior from the elements. The Doctor entered first, setting Adric down against the back wall. Romana crawled in after him, wringing out her hair as she did. The Doctor patted K-9’s head as he slumped to his knees just inside the mouth. There wasn’t room enough to stand inside, and it barely accommodated all four of them. The ground was damp from the rain that had made it inside, but it was still considerably drier than outside.
“Let me see your wounds, Adric,” Romana said, helping him to sit up a bit. She unwrapped his bandages and checked the burns carefully. He hadn’t healed yet, but it was clear the process had begun, for which Romana was grateful. “How do you feel?”
“Very cold,” Adric admitted. He looked to the Doctor, who squatted at the mouth of the cave, looking out. His broad frame filled most of the entrance up, further shielding the inside from the weather. “Doctor, you’ll get sick sitting out there like that.”
Turning, the Doctor peered inside the cave at the boy. “Sick? An Alzarian telling me I’ll catch cold?” He grinned brightly, even though his curls hung limp on his brow, periodically dripping water down his cheeks. “Quaint, isn’t it Romana?”
“Very,” she replied dryly. “He is right you know.”
“Oh, I think we’ve got a bit more to worry about than catching colds,” the Doctor said. His eyes were focused on Adric’s arm, which Romana had just finished rewrapping. “You were very sharp back there, Adric, calculating a safe place in that storm.”
It was dark in the cave, but Adric flushed at the praise. “It was nothing,” he insisted.
“I certainly couldn’t have done it,” Romana said kindly.
“Nor I,” the Doctor agreed. Then quickly amended, “Well, perhaps. I was rather occupied.”
“I had K-9’s help,” Adric pointed out.
“Yes, well,” the Doctor said, shuffling on his knees, “remember to keep the praise to a minimum then, Romana. The boy doesn’t like it.”
“It’s not that!” Adric quickly said. He looked away, embarrassed.
“Oh?” the Doctor questioned.
“Nothing,” Adric said. “Thank you.”
For several seconds, the Doctor studied Adric’s profile. Then he glanced to Romana. Seeing no explanation from her, he turned back to the weather. “Looks like things are calming down a bit.” He looped his sodden scarf around his neck once more and rose to his feet outside. “I’m going to see if everyone made it to the caves safely.”
“You can’t go!” Romana immediately protested.
“And why not? You can take care of Adric for me, can’t you?”
“Well, yes, but what if we need you?”
The Doctor fixed Romana with a very flat stare. “Really, Romana.”
She turned away, shamefaced. So often she tried to belittle the Doctor, claiming she was better than him at this thing or that—it was ridiculous of her to try to admit a weakness now. “Of course,” she said. “Go on then and see if anyone needs help, but remember we need help too and hurry back.”
The Doctor didn’t reply, instead just flashed his brilliant smile at the pair of them, pulled his hat out from one of his coat pockets and turned around. “Come along, K-9!” he called and was soon gone.
--