Purple Vortex [II]

The Impossible Planet Pt2:

"Close door 1." "The rocket line's fine." Toby said as he came back into the room and Zach called up a hologram over the central console. "That's the black hole, officially designated K three seven Gen five." He told the three. "In the scriptures of the Falltino, this planet is called Kroptor, the bitter pill. And the black hole is supposed to be a mighty demon. It was tricked into devouring the planet, only to spit it out, because it was poison."

"The bitter pill. I like that." Rose said. "We are so far out. Lost in the drifts of the universe. How did you lot even get here?" Galaxy asked them. "We flew in. You see, this planet's generating a gravity field. We don't know how. We've no idea. But it's kept in constant balance against the black hole. And the field extends out there as a funnel. A distinct gravity funnel, reaching out into clear space. That was our way in." Zach explained. "You flew down that thing? Like a rollercoaster." "By rights, the ship should have been torn apart. We lost the Captain, which is what put me in charge."

"You're doing a good job." Ida told him smiling. "Yeah, well, needs must." "But if that gravity funnel closes, there's no way out." Danny spoke up. "We had fun speculating about that." "Oh, yeah. That's the word. Fun." "But that field would take phenomenal amounts of power. I mean not just big, but off the scale! Can I?" The Doctor asked. "Sure. Help yourself." Ida said as one of the aliens brought Rose a plastic cup. "Your refreshment." "Oh, yeah. Thanks. Thank you. I'm sorry, what was your name?" Rose asked it. "We have no titles. We are as one." "Er, what are they called?"

"Oh, come on. Where have you been living? Everyone's got one." Danny said. "Well, not me, so, what are they?" Rose asked. "They're the Ood." "The Ood?" "The Ood." Danny repeated. "Well that's ood." "Very ood, but handy. They work the mine shafts. All the drilling and stuff. Supervision and maintenance. They're born for it. Basic slave race." "You've got slaves? Rose asked. "Don't start. She's like one of that lot. Friends of the Ood." Scooti complained. "Well maybe I am, yeah. Since when do humans need slaves?"

"But the Ood offer themselves. If you don't give them orders, they just pine away and die." Danny told her. "Seriously, you like being ordered around?" Rose asked one of the Ood. "It is all we crave." "Why's that, then?" "We have nothing else in life." "Yeah, well, I used to think that, a long time ago."

"There we go. Do you see? To generate the gravity field, and the funnel, you'd need a power source with an inverted self-extrapolating reflex of six to the power of six every six seconds." The Doctor spoke up after him and Galaxy had been working. "That's a lot of sixes." Rose said as she went back to them. "And impossible." Galaxy told her. "It took us two years to work that out." "Galaxy's just that good." The Doctor said grinning. "But that's why we're here. This power source is ten miles below through solid rock. Point zero. We're drilling down to try and find it."

"It could revolutionise modern science." Zach said. "We could use it to fuel the Empire." "Or start a war." Galaxy pointed out, she knew that a lot of power like that would attract power hungry people. "It's buried beneath us, in the darkness, waiting." Toby said. "What's your job, chief dramatist?" Rose remarked. "Well, whatever it is down there is not a natural phenomena. And this, er, planet once supported life eons ago, before the human race had even learned to walk."

"We saw that lettering written on the wall. Did you do that?" The Doctor asked him. "I copied it from fragments we found unearthed by the drilling, but I can't translate it." "Neither can we. And that's saying something." Galaxy said, she had a feeling that not even Astro would be able to translate the writing, his knowledge is based off the knowledge she gave him and he gained over the years. "There was some form of civilisation. They buried something. Now it's reaching out, calling us in."