HARMONY (a Doctor Who Novella)

Chapter 3

Rain drenched grass soaked the cuffs of his trousers. He was barefoot in the garden, sonic screwdriver in his hand, wondering where that old biddy of a housekeeper had put his shoes. Last time he'd come in muddy and soaked, she'd thrown them out there and turned the garden hose on them. Aha. He picked up a sodden trainer and tipped it over. A cloudy stream trickled between his fingers. He emptied the other one, then set them to dry, wondering when the sun would be coming up.

Behind him, the stately brick manor house loomed silent and large in the fog, the centuries old country estate Pete Tyler had restored in the aftermath of the John Lumic Cybermen affair. He closed the door securely. It wouldn't do to have wee Rusty Tyler trailing after him in the dark, following him like he was some sort of sonic Pied Piper.

A boom echoed dully, like a far off thunderclap. He whirled, startled by the sound but unsure why. The night sky, dark and clouded, blazed to light for just a moment, shimmering lights crackling in the mist, roiling in an unearthly display of colour above the tree line at the far end of the pasture. Almost too late he saw the yawning maw open in the haze and spotted a projectile hurtling toward him. He watched, bewildered, as the object skimmed a line of cedars, tore into the greenhouse on the hill, exiting one side after apparently making contact with the Tardis within. It careened wildly, knocking the roof off the brand new, freshly painted garden shed before coming to rest on the lawn just feet away from him. He blinked.

"What?"

A cannon ball. He stepped forward, squinting at the deadly sphere, then back into the sky from which it had come. A rush of adrenaline made him forget, momentarily, why he was even standing in the garden at 4am, barefoot. Aside from deflecting the Yugglorrh Transperion's latest feeble attack on the planet, this was the most excitement he had had in months and the realization came as something of a depressing shock. Cannonballs hardly compared to Cybermen, Carrionites or even Agatha Christie. Then again, cannonballs hurling out of mysterious lights in the sky were better than nothing and a lot better than disappearing sheep. A proper right mystery this was. Why, maybe even enough for Agatha Christie to have penned a book about it. The Case of the Careening Cannonball.

Against the dark ground the compact ball of iron was darker still. And quite harmless now that it was no longer in flight. He picked it up, rolling it over and over in his hands, then held it close to his nose. It smelled of sulphur and burned grease. A well-lubed cannon had launched this little beauty. He touched a forefinger to his tongue then wished he hadn't. Iron, silicon, and, if he wasn't mistaken, a dash of Nathaniel Nye's proprietary gunpowder blend. He rolled the unpleasant flavours around in his mouth before spitting them out. Blasted human physiology again. A curious flavour lingered. Strange. Trace amounts of non terrestrial iron ore. No. It couldn't be. Zeiton 7? But that was ludicrous. The only Zeiton 7 mines he knew of were on Varos and even when he considered that the planet shared the Mutter Spiral with Earth it was far beyond his reach in the constellation of Cetes. With a fully functioning Tardis he could reach it. Without it, the Tardis might never even achieve proper functionality. His attempts to substitute several rare earth elements for Zeiton 7 had produced mixed results, not to mention noxious fumes. To date only Gadolinium-153 and Dysprosium had proved marginally palatable to the finicky Time Ship.

He trained his sonic screwdriver on the cannon ball to confirm his suspicions, but it provided little information beyond what he already knew before it whistled, sparked, then sputtered out. It hadn't been resonating frequencies correctly since he dropped it in the peat bog.

Lights flicked on in the house as those within seemed to have realized something was amiss on the lawn. Tony was jumping up and down at his bedroom window, calling for his dad to come quickly. A moment later it was Pete's voice he heard, "...not the shed again." As if on cue, the precariously leaning structure disintegrated into a pile of lumber, potting soil, and garden implements. It was probably a good time to make his exit. It was that or try to explain why what appeared to be a 17th Century cannonball was sitting in the Tyler's award-winning, manicured garden.