Until We Burn | Dr Who

Chapter One Hundred and Seven: The Waters of Mars

TW// Drowning

—

Ed and Yuri wait for us in the sickbay. They don't register our presence, too busy watching the creature inside a glass quarantine bay. "Has that door got a Hardinger seal?" the Captain asks.

"No, just basic."

"Then the moment she heads for the door, we evacuate. Got that?"

He paces over to the monitor attached to the glass. "Pulse is low. Electrical activity in the brain seems to be going haywire."

I shakily lower myself onto a seat at the central desk. My chest seizes and I stifle a cough in the crook of my elbow. When I look back up, I find Maggie's eyes piercing into mine. Unlike Andy's, her irises are still their natural, dark brown.

Adelaide approaches the window. "Can she talk?"

"Don't know. She was talking before we noticed the change, but..."

She approaches, scared to come too close. "Maggie? Can you hear me? Do you know who I am? Your commanding officer, Captain Adelaide Brooke. Can you tell me what happened?"

Maggie places her hand flat against the window. Like with Andy, water pools from each dip of her fingers, trickling down to the floor. Our eye contact doesn't break. The Doctor speaks up in an unfamiliar tongue, "Hoorghwall in schtochman ahn warrelinsh och fortabellan iin hoorgwahn."

We all look at him in bewilderment. It is enough to have attracted her attention to him instead. "What language is that?" Ed asks.

"Ancient North Martian."

"Don't be ridiculous," Adelaide scoffs, crossing her arms.

"It's like she recognised it."

I clear my throat. It doesn't feel like the tickle left by some sort of cold, it is much deeper. Like something is slowly clawing its way up my oesophagus, unable to be ignored. I lean forward, resting on my elbows, trying to slow my breathing.

Oblivious, the Doctor continues to study her. "Her eyes are different. They're clear, like she's closer to human."

"Not close enough for me," Ed mutters darkly.

He chooses to ignore the comment, looking back to the Captain. "Where do you get your water from?"

"The ice field. That's why we chose the crater, we're on top of an underground glacier."

"Tons of water. Marvellous."

Unconvinced, Yuri shakes his head. "But every single drop is filtered. It's screened, it's safe."

He grimaces. "Looks like it, yeah."

"If something was frozen down there... a viral life form, held in the ice for all those years..."

"Look at her mouth," the Doctor tells them, tilting his head with her as she watches him. "All blackened, like there's some sort of fission. This thing, whatever it is, doesn't just hide in water, it creates water." Urged on by the realisation, he demands, "Tell me what you want."

Yuri anxiously nods to the desk where I sit. The computer shows a satellite image of the globe. "She was looking at the screen. She was looking at Earth. She wanted Earth. A world full of water."

My coughing has gotten worse. I can't stop it anymore, doubled over, desperately trying to breathe through the spasms. The air in the room doesn't seem to reach me, as if another panic attack is coming on. The Doctor rushes to my side, patting my back and trying to bring my face up to look at him. "Inara? Inara, what's wrong?"