Doctor Who_ Wooden Heart - Martin Day [11]
‘We’ve gone through… some sort of portal, then,’ said Martha, desperate to make sense of their situation. ‘We walked through, and… Now we’re on another world.’
‘I don’t remember stepping through a magic wardrobe, do you?’
Martha was getting impatient with the Doctor’s wilful misreading of her comments. ‘No, you know… A wormhole that links one bit of space and time with another.’
‘You ever seen a wormhole?’ queried the Doctor.
‘You know I haven’t!’
‘Well, it’s nothing like this. Anyway, take a look there.’ He pointed over Martha’s shoulder.
Behind her, as if drawn on the gnarled trunk in spots of pale lichen, was the faintest impression of the door they had just walked through – a rounded, metallic, very real door. Part of a very real space station that, in the blink of an eye, had been replaced by a clearing in the forest.
Martha rapped the back of her hand against the tree. It made a metallic clang, as if the entire tree were made of steel.
‘So this clearing, this forest… It’s attached to the Castor?’
‘It seems to be, doesn’t it?’ The Doctor was on his hands and knees again, digging down through the layer of leaves near the metallic tree. He eventually found a small section of the space station floor, glinting in the light of an impossible sun.
Martha tapped her foot on the revealed metal floor. ‘Can we get back?’
‘To the station? Don’t know. Haven’t tried yet.’ He walked off. ‘Aren’t you intrigued, though? Don’t you want to see if this forest goes anywhere, or if it just turns into another chunk of spaceship?’
Martha considered. She supposed the forest was preferable to a space station full of dust and bodies. And there was always the chance that they’d find themselves back in the research craft before too long – or maybe even back in the TARDIS. ‘It is beautiful,’ she admitted. ‘OK, just a quick look.’
‘Of course,’ said the Doctor.
‘On the understanding that we’re really only looking for the TARDIS.’
‘Absolutely.’
‘And that we can find our way back to this point without a problem.’
‘Piece of cake,’ said the Doctor.
‘And that we’ll be gone for no more than five minutes.’
‘Five minutes. Max.’
Two hours later and they were still going. Martha wasn’t convinced that this was because they were in an especially large forest; instead, she suspected that they were simply going round in circles. Every few minutes they would pass a tree stump that looked like the head of a bloated teddy bear. She tried pointing this out to the Doctor, but he seemed as sanguine as ever. He mentioned something about going astray with the Brothers Grimm, commented airily on why lost people so often walk in circles – something to do with the inner ear, if Martha recalled correctly – and then asked her how she was feeling.
Martha’s gloom deepened. The medical scanner on the research ship had been right after all – her ear was starting to hurt. When she put a finger to it, it felt hot and inflamed. The sooner they got back to the relative comfort of the TARDIS, the better.
‘Not far to go now,’ said the Doctor cheerfully.
‘What do you mean? We’ve been wandering around for ages!’
‘I mean, just a few more minutes and then we’ll go back.’
‘Are you sure we can go back?’ asked Martha.
‘Just a few more minutes,’ said the Doctor, ducking the question.
As they walked, the Doctor would gesture towards a brightly coloured flower in a glade or a brightly trilling yellow bird in the uppermost branches. At one point, they heard something crashing through the undergrowth, and they both paused, nervously eyeing each other and the gently swaying trees that, just for a moment, appeared to lean towards them.
Then, a tiny boar, dappled with yellow and brown stripes, hurtled out of the trees, squealing. It appeared to glance up at the Doctor and Martha as it moved and then, shrieking all the louder, turned and crashed back into the forest.
Quick as a flash the Doctor