There was a sickly blue-green cast. The water, so curiously warm, swirling him along in a turbulent spiral of froth and twinkling air bubbles. He bounced.

He up-ended. He glanced off the ice sheet, hurting his head.

Five seconds before he drowned, he failed to hit the ice with a last, frantic punch.

Three seconds before he drowned, the water flow accelerated and smashed him through some kind of submerged gate or shutter.

One second before he drowned, he stopped drowning and breathed again.

There was no ice.

He’d surfaced, with access to the wintery air. He gulped it in, as though he was drinking it, filling his burning, about-to-burst lungs. He went under again, remembered to tread water, and came up spluttering.

Blinking water out of his eyes, he tried to get his bearings. He was in a pool, like a large mill pond.

Traces of slushy ice drifted on the surface, but it was generally unfrozen.

The river had brought him downhill under its frozen crust and thrown him through a sluice gate into the pond. He still couldn’t fathom why the water, deep under its cooler surface layers, was warm. It had to be some kind of artificially heated flow, surely?

Whatever the answer, it wasn’t his immediate concern. The unnatural warmth of the water had spared him from a numbing death, but he was still soaking wet outdoors on a snowy day. He had to get out, get dry, find shelter.

The pool, shadowed by mature trees, was flanked by buildings. They looked like they were made of wood and stone, with plates of grey metal. The drab side-walls were patched with green moss and lichen as though they had stood for years, and some of the metal pins and bolts had corroded green. The buildings overhung the pool, and parts of them extended out into the water like dams or the gates of a filtration plant.

Rory let the gentle current of the pool, its power slackened by the sluice, carry him towards the projections. He caught hold of some metal pipework.

The cold of it hurt his palms. He went down the frame, hand over hand, dragging himself through the water until he was close to a small metal jetty, then he heaved himself up out of the water. It felt like he weighed a ton.

Water streamed off him, pouring out of his saturated clothes as he stood up. Steam plumed off him. He could feel the cold biting into his skin, turning his clothes into heavy, clammy bandages.

He slopped down the jetty. The buildings were definitely water mills of some kind. The river had been directed via the sluices into the catchment pool so that it could drive turbine systems hidden in the utilitarian structures. The buildings seemed old, but the technology appeared modem. Rory had already got used to dismissing that kind of anachronism.

The sky had changed colour, as if it had soured like milk, and heavy snowflakes were starting to fall. Rory knew he had to get inside one of the buildings before he lost too much of his core body heat.

There were no immediate signs of a door.

He walked along the jetty, and then along a timber-planked service walkway between two of the structures. There was no snow here, as though internal heat had kept it from laying. If he could only get inside…

It suddenly occurred to him to look around and check for signs of pursuit. He had no idea how far the river had carried him, but even the slightest chance that the green thing was still after him made his heart skip.

He looked back up the pond towards the sluice, and towards the trees on the far bank. He saw nothing but green shadows and the snow, which was now falling quite fast.

Green shadows seemed perfect for a green thing to hide in, no matter how big it was.

He followed the walkway round. There had to be a hatch or an entrance somewhere.

He stopped. He heard something. He couldn’t tell what it was. The crunch of a footstep? The creak of ice? The crack of a branch snapping under the snow’s weight?

It was close. Had that thing located him again already? How had it caught up so fast? He crept a little further, encumbered by his soaked clothing. There was a hatch. Down the end of the walkway, there was definitely a hatch.

He took a look over his shoulder.

Just for a second, he saw the light reflect off red eyes. Just a glint, like the gleam of blood. Red eyes, out there in the enclosing darkness of the wood.

Red eyes searching for him.

He hurried towards the hatch. Looking back, he saw that the eyes had gone. He heard a noise. A footstep on a metal walkboard.

Something was on the jetty. Something was moving.

Rory reached the hatch. There was a recessed slot built to fit a human hand. He reached in and turned the rotator bar. The hatch unlocked. He pulled it open and went inside, not even caring what might lie within.

Warmth hit him, and darkness surrounded him. He heard another footstep on the jetty, closer. He dragged the hatch shut and locked it behind him.

He looked around. He was in some kind of machine space above one of the turbines. He could hear the rush of water and the cycle of a wheel or a screw system coming up from below. It was very dark, but it was a lot warmer inside than outside.

He crouched down inside the hatch. He could hear whatever it was moving outside. He could hear it walking along the jetty and then the timber planks. He put his hand on the door bolt to stop it being turned from outside. Something came close to the hatch, went past, and then came back. He held his breath as it began to scrape and scratch at the recessed handle. He could hear a deep, rasping breath, a ragged, asthmatic wheeze.

It was trying to get in. It was trying to get in and get at him. It knew he was there.

The scraping and rattling grew worse, as if the thing outside possessed hands that were too big to fit the slot. It banged the hatch instead. The breathing became more laboured, a wet hiss from gurgling lungs.

The effort suddenly stopped. Rory waited, clasping the inside handle. He heard a noise, almost a voice, followed by movement.

Then the hideous discharge of the green thing’s weapon, a repeated burst, squealed right outside. It made him jump. It hurt his ears. There was an impact.

Something fell, or collided with something else heavy.

The weapon went off again.

Silence.

Rory waited for a long time, scarcely daring to move or breathe. He waited for some sign or clue from outside, but heard no further sounds.

When he had waited, unmoving, for what seemed like long enough, and then a bit longer just to be safe, he got up quietly and began to grope through the darkness to see if he could find a more secure hiding place further inside the structure.

He realised he wasn’t alone in the building. He came to this realisation immediately after he managed to say the words ‘Hang on’, and immediately before something heavy smacked him across the side of the head and knocked him out.

Chapter

7

The Stars in the Night Sky

‘Is it?’ Amy asked quietly. Her voice was muffled because the snow had made her face numb, and also because she didn’t want Samewell or Bel to hear her.

For the same reason, she’d kept the question unspecific.

The Doctor glanced at her and shook his head.

Amy knew that was Doctor Code for I have no idea, but I intend to retain a cautiously positive approach to the situation.

‘But it could be…’ she asked, trailing off before she got to ‘this girl we were looking for?’

The Doctor was crouching in the middle of the clearing, examining the stains soaked into the snow.

His knees were on a level with his ears, so he resembled a frog on a lily pad.


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