Youth is Wasted on the Young (p.9)

The Doctor, Amy, and Rory visit a world where all the adults look like 12 year old children. But something else has arrived, and it's hungry.


The thumping never ceased and showed no signs of abating. The things, whatever they were, seemed demonically determined to get inside.

Fortunately the Doctor and the others had found no gaps in their haven, and the sides of the engine compartment were stacked with footlockers and crates of tools for them to sit on.

They occasionally stared up at the walls worriedly as a particularly hard thud threatened to rock the harvester.

"So how do we get out of this?" Rory asked of no one in particular, after a particularly ringing wallop.

Dutch pulled out his cell phone, flipped it open, and hit a button. "Janine?"

Rory looked at the Doctor in consternation.

The Doctor smiled. "Well, there's that taken care of," he said in admiration.

They listened as Dutch explained the situation and told Janine to call out the militia. He gave her their coordinates, then snapped his phone shut. He went back to brooding, his shoulders tense. They settled in to wait.

The air was close, the thuds nerve-wracking. A screeching sound, like claws on metal ripped through the room. Rory grabbed the prybar he'd found in one of the crates. He looked around frantically, but there was no breach in their walls. He clutched the prybar, his heart thudding. "Doctor...? Amy?" he finally asked, unable to hold it in any longer.

"I don't know, Rory," the Doctor said quietly. "Right now, all we can do is survive so we can rescue her." The Doctor's lips were thin with concern, his jaw hard. He didn't look at all like a geography teacher at the moment, more like an angry ancient warrior.

Rory took comfort from that.

—————

A bit more than an hour later, the rocking blows against the harvester abruptly ceased. A few minutes later they could hear a muffled chuffing sound.

Dutch's phone beeped. He scrambled to answer it, almost dropping it.

"Sheriff Anderson?" A calm, authoritative voice asked.

"Yes, we're here."

"I'm Colonel Tildaith. We are outside with a combat chopper. The fog has disbursed. It's safe to come out now."

The Doctor took the phone from Dutch. "Any sign of our assailants?" he asked urgently.

"No sir. We caught something on the edge of our scans but they disappeared before we arrived. It's only us out here."

"Right," the Doctor said, tossing the phone back to Dutch. "Here we go."

—————

The Doctor opened the harvester hatch. Fresh air wafted in from outside.

"Amy!" Rory yelled, as he pushed his head out of the harvester beside the Doctor.

The Doctor flinched as Rory's voice bellowed in his ear, but he didn't protest. His eyes darted to the last spot he'd seen Amy. There was nothing there now but crushed wheat. He heard the soft, hurt noise Rory made when he realized that Amy was gone.

The sun was going down.

The Doctor leapt down out of the harvester and sprinted over to the ATV where he had last seen Stanley running. He ripped open the hatch door and stuck his head inside, a quick scan revealed no sign of Stanley.

Rory ran up behind the Doctor, who was half lying in the ATV hatch doorway. "Anything?" he asked.

The Doctor stood back and shook his head. "No." He turned and strode briskly back to the sheriff who was talking to an official looking, black-haired boy.

A large chopper rested on the wheat stubble beside the harvester; bulbous, black, and bristling with machine gun turrets, it had no visible blades. A dozen, 4 1/2 foot tall Marines scouted the area, dressed in black body armor, combat helmets, and sporting compact machine guns.

Colonel Tildaith was a lean, sharp 12 year old with jet black hair, and big black sunglasses. He looked crisp, no-nonsense, and lethal.

"It's a Man in Black," Rory whispered in surprise.

"Colonel Tildaith," the Doctor said, holding out his hand. "I don't suppose you found any survivors out here? A grown-up female, a red-haired 17 year old, and a couple of tripods, have you?"

The Colonel shook his hand firmly. "Doctor," he nodded in greeting, obviously having been briefed by Dutch. "We haven't found anyone as yet."

"Did you get a good look at whatever was out here?" the Doctor asked, giving him that deep-eyed searching look.

"We got something on the edge of our scanners, but they were indistinct with distance and fog."

"I'd like to take a look at those," the Doctor said. "But first we need to find out where the..." his eyes drifted away to the battered harvester looming beyond them.

—————

His voice trailed off. The harvester was no longer as pristine as when they'd first seen it.

The Doctor strode off around it, frowning, scanning the damage, Rory followed him, desperately scouring the wheatfields for any sign of survivors. The sheriff and the colonel followed them.

They found the scuff marks where the harvester had been repeatedly battered, noted the dents and damage, the crumbling masonry, They gauged the kind of force needed for such effects. Rory shivered. They found the cracked windshield. Apparently something had continued to work at the safety glass, a small hole had been dug out of the center of the spiderweb crack.

There was no sign of Amy, no lost shoe, no scarf or earring.

"Which direction did they go?" the Doctor demanded in a hard voice, turning to the Colonel.

"South," Tildaith answered. "But before you suggest it, we already did a loop south on the way in, hoping we'd intercept them. But we lost them, they completely vanished off our scopes. And I don't fancy facing whatever did that," he waved at the battered harvester, "in the dark with only night vision goggles. Especially since they can fly. I'll not risk my men uselessly."

The Doctor didn't point out that half his "men" were little girls. That would have been pedantic. Besides he had no intention of arguing with the man. Some notions of chivalry ran too deep to fight.

"Yes," the Doctor said, he stuffed his hands in his pockets. "Quite right."

"We'll return as soon as it's light," the Colonel promised.

Rory cursed and started pacing furiously, kicking at the wheat. He suddenly jumped up as if he'd been electrified, he stared in horror at the base of the harvester. The Doctor ran over to see what he was staring at.

A single, bruised pink tentacle waved out from under the huge machine, half buried in the wheat that crowded right up to the sides. It was obviously injured, the puce colored skin mottled a darker red in places, shading to purple in others.

The Doctor knelt down to help, but before he could take the tentacle in hand, it was withdrawn back under the harvester and a second later the pink bulb of the tripod's body backed out from under the shelter of the farm machine. He pushed himself out with all three legs, rolling backwards in an exhausted lump.

"Toftoc?" the Doctor asked. He pulled out the sonic screwdriver as if to scan the little alien, but stopped at the last moment, noting the loose, injured skin. He looked at the screwdriver and put it back in his pocket.

The little alien gave a shivery sigh, its skin rippling in a painful looking vibration. "Yes." He rolled onto his side, legs limp. The Doctor carefully picked the small person up. His little pink body barely filled the Time Lords large hands.

The Doctor snugged the weary alien into the crook of his elbow like a baby and carefully tucked its dangling legs in around its body. "Thank you," it whispered weakly.

"Do you have medical supplies aboard your ship?" the Doctor asked. The little alien gave a slight wiggle that might have been a nod. "The Captain?" it whispered.

"Taken, " the Doctor admitted grimly, looking at Rory. "Along with the others." He gave Rory a clench-jawed look, daring the nurse to make a fuss over Amy when there was an emergency here to deal with.

Rory looked pale as a sheet, his freckles standing out. But he nodded. The Doctor clasped him gratefully on the shoulder. "Hold on, Toftoc," the Doctor said. "We're going to get you back to your ship." He strode off with long determined strides, none of his normal clumsiness showing now.

The Doctor strode directly into the ATV, taking the hip high step without breaking stride, flowing up with a thoughtless strength a human couldn't match. Rory scrambled in after him. The Doctor turned, "Take off your vest," he ordered, nodding at Rory's quilted vest.

Rory shrugged out of it. The Doctor lifted the elbow cradling Toftoc, the alien was apparently unconscious. Realizing what the Doctor meant, Rory held up his vest like a nest and took the small person from him, he wrapped the puffy quilted fabric over the little alien, warmth being a treatment for shock for all the creatures he knew. The Doctor nodded.

"Get strapped in." The Doctor leaned out of the hatch. "Dutch!" he bellowed. The sheriff broke off his urgent discussion with the colonel and ran over. "We're going back to the farm," the Doctor said grimly. Dutch didn't argue but climbed in and headed for the cockpit. The Doctor turned to the sleek Colonel, "Follow us back," he ordered the military man, as if he had all the right in the world, "I want to see those scans." He pulled the hatch closed and dogged it.

Then he dove for Stanley's remote tracer board. He pulled the complex keyboard over his knees as Dutch lifted them away. His fingers flew, working the hundreds of sliders and dials as if he did it every day of his life. His eyes flickered over the readings.

He suddenly slumped back with relief. He looked at Rory. "She's alive."