The Doctor, Susan, Ian and Barbara stood with Clebadee on a hilltop overlooking the field.

Terrians from all over the land were assembled below them. Beyond the fact that Terrians connected to the Dreaming were on one side of the field, and Terrians who weren't were on the other, they did not appear to meet in anything resembling an orderly fashion. They just kind of milled about, muttering, gurgling, and trilling to one another.

"Can you tell what's happening?" Susan asked.

"Yes," Clebadee answered. "I am very surprised. When presented to them in a formal way, with an explanation, the others are becoming very interested in the idea of the Dreaming."

"Even Darlo?" Ian asked.

"Especially him," Clebadee answered.

"Is he here?" Barbara asked.

"Yes. Do you not see? He is there." Clebadee pointed down at the field. He could have been pointing at any one of about 20 Terrians, most of whom still looked alike to the four travelers. Barbara decided not to ask him to be more specific.

Instead, she asked, "Why would someone like Darlo accept this so easily now? He wanted to kill all of us, you know."

The Doctor explained, "Some things are better accepted with overwhelming numbers. If only one Terrian instead of 100 were down there trying to convince the others, the result would probably be completely different."

"Also, Darlo is not completely bad," Clebadee pointed out. "He really does mean well, and is truly interested in the well-being of his tribe, and of all Terrians."

"Yes, it's just his methods which need improving," the Doctor said, without taking his eyes off the activity below.

"There is a reason he became an elder, Doctor," Clebadee said.

"Actually, my dear boy, there was probably more than one reason he became an elder," the Doctor said mysteriously.

Clebadee was about to ask what the Doctor meant by this when Ian asked, "Are they going to call on us?"

"It does not seem so," Clebadee answered. "We had thought that maybe your testimony would be crucial. But as it turns out, the feeling I have about the proceedings below is that hearing non-Terrians speak about a Terrian matter would actually be harmful, rather than helpful."

"Quite right, quite right," the Doctor said. "I completely agree."

They looked on as, one by one, the Terrians approached and mingled with each other. Slowly, the non-dreaming Terrians were shown how to enter the Dreaming. Some, it turned out, had already done so, and like Clebadee, had simply never told anyone. The strength of the emotion in the field below was such that the four travelers could feel the relief of those who had thought of themselves as rejects, or unclean. Some Terrians took to it quickly, and almost immediately sank into the earth in a communion with the planet.

The Doctor and Ian smiled at each other.

"Well, Doctor," Ian said, "it looks like everything will turn out all right."

 

"Well, Doctor," Dr. Vasquez said, "it looks like everything will turn out all right."

"It's beginning to look that way, isn't it?" the Doctor replied. "How are you feeling?"

"As right as rain," Romana replied. "Remind me to step aside and let you sail on past the next time you're caught in an explosion."

"All right – step aside and let me sail on past the next time I'm caught in an explosion. K9, make a note of that."

"Affirmative. Memorandum about stepping aside and explosions recorded."

Hanson shook his head. "You three are a regular comedy routine, you know that?"

"You think so?" the Doctor said. "Well, I'm afraid what comes next isn't going to be very funny at all. Is everyone here?"

They were in the physician's mess hall, much smaller than the main cafeteria. He looked around the table at Romana, Dr. Vasquez, Hanson, Julia and Alonzo. The Doctor stood at the head of the table, and K9 waited by the door.

"As you all know," the Doctor said, "there is a murderer and saboteur on board this ship. A murderer who doesn't seem able to exist, because no one boarded this ship, no one left it, there was no stowaway, and everyone was still in their cryo-sleep chambers upon revival.

"However, it was Mr. Hanson who gave me the clue which put me on the right track, and I didn't spot it at the time: gravity. When Romana and I arrived, this vessel's gravity was on, but as Mr. Hanson said, it should not have been."

"But Doctor," Hanson said, "you said yourself that the gravity being on didn't matter. That fact alone doesn't necessarily point you in any given direction."

"Ah, but it did – but in a very indirect way. When I actually thought about the gravity being on, I began thinking about the reasoning behind the saboteur's actions. I put myself in his shoes, so to speak. And what I realized was that anyone who got out of a cold sleep chamber could just as easily get back in."

"Why would anyone do that?" Dr. Vasquez asked.

"Because Romana and I had just arrived and we began waking up the crew," the Doctor answered.

Everyone in the room was silent.

"You see, the saboteur hacked into the computer before departure and changed his own personal wake-up time to a point sometime during the 24-year voyage. He got out of his chamber, canceled the revival for everyone on board except himself, then got back in to sleep the rest of the way.

"Then, when this ship reached the G8 system, only one person woke up. That person did not leave the ship – he just stayed here. The reason he stayed here was because the ship was off course and he had nowhere to go!

"Our saboteur evidently can't pilot a large cargo vessel. Imagine his disappointment when he climbed out of his cold sleep chamber, only to discover that planet G889 was nowhere in sight. He couldn't fly the ship, but neither could he bring Sheila or Tom out of cold sleep to make a course correction without having to answer a lot of awkward questions. So he just hung about, doing a lot of nothing. Cooling his heels. Perhaps waiting for his contact to come and rescue him.

"Then Romana and I arrived on board, and suddenly the saboteur was not alone. He probably monitored our presence, but was afraid to approach us, and when we started reviving the crew, he had no choice but to climb back into his capsule and pretend he'd been asleep just like everyone else. Otherwise, the medical team would have wondered why he was already awake, or why his capsule was empty.

"Later, when he knew that the sabotage had been discovered, he had to destroy the computer which kept the ship's log."

"But why use explosives?" Vasquez asked.

"Time. The saboteur knew that he had only minutes to act, so he was pretty crude. He swiped an emergency charge from the storage area – K9 and I checked, there are several missing. Then he went to the bridge, killed Tom, blew up the computer, and rejoined his companions.

"He knew he had to act quickly because he'd heard me, Dr. Vasquez, Sheila and Romana discussing ways to find the saboteur, and he knew we would turn our attention to the ship's log. So he made an excuse to leave us for a few minutes, planted the bomb on the bridge, then stood conveniently away from the door when it exploded, didn't you, Hanson?"

Hanson looked up sharply as the implications of the Doctor's words sunk in.

"What are you saying?" he asked. "Are you saying that I'm the saboteur? That I killed Tom?"

"No," the Doctor replied. "You said it. It was your own slip-up, when we were on the bridge examining the damage. You mentioned the fact that I'd told the rest of you that Romana and I walked to the bridge, and you deduced from that statement that the gravity was turned on.

"But you didn't hear me make that statement. You weren't there. You had excused yourself for a few minutes, ostensibly to check the drop pods. The only way you could have known that the gravity was already on when Romana and I arrived is if you were already awake and running around the ship when we did."

The room was silent. Hanson and the Doctor stared hard at each other.

Finally, Hanson spoke. "You're right, Doctor. I don't know how to pilot a large cargo vessel. But my contact here in the G8 system told me that this ship is orbiting the sun more slowly than the planet, so all I had to do was wait about nine months for G889 to catch up with us, and then I could join him."

"Was your contact's name 'Reilly?'" Julia asked.

Hanson looked at her sharply. "What would you know about it?"

"We've met him," Alonzo said simply.

"Well you'll never meet him again. Any of you." Hanson whipped out a gun and aimed it at the Doctor.

Immediately, K9 extended his own gun to stun Hanson. But before he could fire, Dr. Vasquez launched himself at Hanson, blocking K9's view.

There was a noise like a thunderclap, and the ship suddenly lurched hard to starboard. The room seemed to spin around as if a giant had kicked it. Everyone yelled as they were thrown against one wall.

The ship was spinning around violently. The centrifugal force kept everyone pinned for a few moments against the wall in a tangled heap. K9 was upside-down, his wheels spinning.

As everyone slowly adjusted and tried to sort out what was going on, Hanson staggered to his feet, the gun still in his hand. The Doctor tried to grab his feet, but Hanson was out the door and careening madly down the tilting hallway.

"What's going on?" Vasquez yelled. He was craning his neck around, trying to see if anyone had been shot. The ship's alarms were blaring. From all over the vessel they could hear a thousand people screaming.

"There must be a hole in one of the fuel tanks!" the Doctor yelled. "It's causing the ship to accelerate out of control!"

As Alonzo regained his balance, he staggered to a window and saw that the Doctor was right. A finger of flame was streaming out of the starboard tank, close to the stern. It was as if another rocket had been added to the side of the ship, and it was causing it to spin around and around.

Planet G889 swept into view and out again, filling the window as it went past.

"It's happening again!" he yelled, slamming his fist into the wall. "We're crashing again! And there's nothing I can do!"

"We've got to get everyone to the escape pods!" Julia yelled.

"No!" Alonzo yelled back. "There's no time! There's too many people on board! We've got to jettison that tank and stop the spin!"

"He's right!" the Doctor yelled. "Get everyone into the hospital wards and strap them in!" He turned to Alonzo. "You fly – I'll jettison!"

"You can't be serious!" Alonzo yelled back.

"I can take the temperature! You can't! Just go!"

They staggered out into the hallway. Romana and Julia ran for the hospital area, Alonzo headed for the bridge, and the Doctor headed aft. Dr. Vasquez activated his gear, pressed a button, and began speaking. His voice came over the PA system for everyone to hear.

"This is Dr. Vasquez. Please remain calm. I need everyone to remain calm and head for the hospital areas. No questions, people – just do it!"

K9 finally righted himself. "Master," he said simply, rolling out into the hallway.

Vasquez' message did more to help the panic than anything else. Some people had already filled several escape pods, and they began falling towards the planet's surface. But there were not enough pods to hold everyone.

Alonzo staggered onto the bridge, fighting a g-force which was increasing. He reached the pilot's seat and strapped himself in, then shut down both engines. It would only help a little. The flaming hole in the side of the fuel tank was like a runaway third engine which he couldn't turn off.

He struggled with the controls, estimating that the ship would hit the upper atmosphere in about five minutes.

"Come on, Doctor!" he grunted. "Come on!"

 

Julia, Romana and Dr. Vasquez quickly and efficiently organized the rest of the medical staff, and together they started herding everyone into the two hospital wards on either side of the ship. Julia noted that Angela had also kept her head and was efficiently telling people where to go with authority, helping them to stay calm.

Children were being strapped into whatever stationary cots were available. Shelves toppled. The lab windows shattered and glass flew across the room. Some people were dragging in others who had been knocked unconscious.

Julia stood in the doorway to B ward, frantically waving in the last few people still out in the corridor as K9 ushered them along. Everyone was inside except for a little girl and an orderly when the outer bulkhead could no longer take the strain and a hole ripped opened into space.

The air suddenly blew through the corridor at gale force. The orderly was taken off his feet, and with a scream he was gone.

K9, traveling beside the girl, immediately lowered the caterpillar track inside his casing and dug in as hard as he could. He began sliding sideways towards the opening, the little girl screaming and hanging onto him for all she was worth.

Julia grabbed the door frame and reached for the girl, but underestimated the force of the wind. She lost her grip, and with a yell, she, too was whisked away.

K9's laser flashed twice, severing an overhead pipe. It was immediately sucked towards the hole and hit the bulkhead on either side, too long to fit through lengthwise. Julia grabbed it as she was sucked out into space and hung on for dear life.

 

The aft engineering section was already up to about 150 degrees Celsius, and fires had broken out on one side of the room. The Doctor ignored the heat as he ran to the machinery at the far end, trying to figure out which button did what before he even got there.

He started initiating the sequence which would jettison the fuel tank when the console exploded in his face. The fire spread around the whole room. Flinching, looking around for a solution, the Doctor realized he would have to enter the service ducts and jettison the fuel tank manually.

He put his sonic screwdriver in his mouth and entered the service duct, where the heat was an incredible 400 degrees. His hands blistered immediately. Wrapping them in his scarf, he crawled forward.

 

Romana frantically ran through the lab to the supply closet. She found a long roll of electrical cable and ran back, already tying it around her waist. Angela and Dr. Vasquez were there to meet her. "We won't let you go!" Angela yelled.

With the two of them holding on, Romana crawled out into the hallway. She reached the little girl in a second and held on as the others pulled her back in. K9 was forced to stay where he was, as any attempt to turn would cause him to lose his traction.

Vasquez untied the cable and threw it to Julia. She grabbed it and wrapped it around her wrists, just as the hole ripped open even further and the pipe she was holding on to flew out into space.

They hauled her in. As Julia passed K9, she closed her ankles tightly around his neck. K9 let go of the floor and allowed himself to be dragged into B ward behind Julia.

As soon as they were in, they closed the door.

Outside, they heard the horrendous screech of metal tearing like paper.

"Everyone hang on!" Vasquez yelled.

Suddenly the g-force shifted, and for a moment everyone was weightless, and it was deathly silent.

"We've broken away!" Julia said. "The entire ward has broken away from the ship!"

 

Alonzo, struggling with the retros as best he could, opened his eyes in horror as he watched part of the vessel's starboard side, including B ward, drift past the cockpit window and plummet helplessly to the planet below.

Everyone inside was doomed.

"NO!" he slammed his hand on the control panel so hard he dented it, crying tears of frustration. He gritted his teeth and fought harder than ever. There was still the 500 people in A ward. He had to save them. He had to.

"Come on Doctor!" Alonzo called. "Where are you?"

Like an answer, the starboard fuel tank was suddenly gone.

Alonzo felt the change in force as the retros suddenly had more power, and the tank went spinning its crazy way off into the sky, the finger of flame still shooting from its side.

The Doctor crawled back along the service duct and tumbled out into the engineering room in a heap. The fire had partly snuffed itself out by using all the oxygen, but it was still raging across the center of the room. Wrapping his coat around himself, he leaped through it and was in the corridor, running forward to join Alonzo.

 

B ward was quickly dissolving into chaos as everyone gradually realized what was happening. They were no longer pitching around and trying to keep their balance. They were simply in free-fall.

Julia grabbed a bedpost as she floated next to it, staring at all the people around her, wondering if there was some way she could at least cushion somebody. But she knew it was madness. When the ward hit the planet's surface, it would be at several hundred miles an hour, and the heat from atmospheric friction would kill them all long before then, anyway.

"Daddy, I want to leave!" she heard one of the kids scream right next to her.

Leave.

Julia frantically reached into her jacket pocket and pulled out the glass jar, nearly choking with relief when she saw it was still intact, its tiny occupants wriggling around inside.

"Out of my way!" she yelled, elbowing people aside as she floated across to the lab. She hooked her legs around an empty window frame, ignoring the shards of glass which cut into her legs, and frantically opened the jar and dumped the little spiders onto the frame.

"Spin!" she yelled. "Spin, goddamn you, spin!"

Dealing with the weightlessness as best they could, the panicking spiders did the only thing their instinct told them was safe.

They started to spin a web.

 

Alonzo took another look at the ground and knew he wasn't going to make it. He had managed to stop the spin and slow their descent, but unless he could get the nose of the ship up to make some sort of glide landing, it wouldn't do any good.

The Doctor joined him in the copilot's seat, strapping himself in.

"Take over the retro thrusters!" Alonzo yelled.

The Doctor complied. "What are you going to do?" he asked.

"I'm going to turn us 85 degrees to port! One thing I've learned while hiking across this planet is which way the wind blows! If I can get the wind underneath us, it may help us to level out! But I don't have much to work with, here!"

Alonzo struggled with the controls, even calling up the air jets used for maneuvering, trying to twist the ship around so that west was above their heads and north was to the right.

Slowly, the ship began to turn. As it passed through the upper atmosphere, the wind caught it, just like Alonzo hoped it would, and he felt the ship tilt just a little bit.

But it still wouldn't be enough.

 

The first sparks began to fly before the spiders had even completed their web.

"Romana – this will take us to safety!" Julia yelled. "It leads to a cave! Get people moving through it and out the opening!"

Romana had seen enough wonders in the universe that she didn't even question this. She just nodded, floated in front of the web, and disappeared.

Julia grabbed the nearest child and threw her at the web. "Hit the ground running and keep moving!" Then she grabbed another. "Hit the ground running and keep moving!"

Romana found herself in a cave, just as Julia had said. Turning around she saw the first child come through, staggering in surprise.

"Come on! This way!" Romana yelled. "There are others behind you!"

Slowly, people began to disappear from the falling deathtrap.

When it dawned on everyone that there was a way out, they started going through in groups at a time. Julia never stopped shoving people through.

In just over two minutes, almost 500 people had gone through the spider tunnel.

The temperature was becoming almost unbearable. Julia grabbed K9 and sent him through, then turned around and realized that the only three people left were herself, Angela-

And Hanson.

Unable to make it to an escape pod on time, he had hidden among the crowds of people within the ward. Now he raised his gun and aimed at Julia.

Angela lashed out with her foot and kicked his hand, and the shot went wild. Julia and Angela tackled him, punching him and clawing him. Hanson threw Angela off. She flew across the room and hit the wall, then screamed as her back blistered from the heat.

But in the second that Hanson threw off Angela, Julia had an opening. She put Hanson in a head lock, flipped over backwards, and threw him at the web. In a flash, he was gone.

"Come on!" Julia yelled. She grabbed Angela's hand and kicked off the wall, her other hand outstretched. She plucked one of the three spiders from the web just before the whiteness enveloped them.

 

Alonzo wiped away his tears as he watched the part of the ship containing B ward catch fire, still five miles above the ground, and disintegrate in a rolling fireball of destruction across the stratosphere.

 

Angela and Julia were lying on the floor of the cave. Angela gasped, surprised at suddenly finding herself in a place that wasn't burning, falling or exploding. They looked up just in time to see Hanson pick himself up off the ground and pistol-whip Romana across the face.

Julia slipped the spider into her jacket pocket as she and Angela moved forward to get out of the way of the spider energy. Hanson spun to face them.

"Stop!" he yelled. His eyes darted around as he tried to figure out where he was, but he still kept them covered. He slowly backed away.

Julia, Angela, Romana and Hanson were the only ones in the cave, and Hanson was between them and the opening. Julia realized that Romana must have sent K9 outside to help the others. They could really have used the robot right then.

Evidently, Romana thought so, too. As the Time Lady slowly got up, she said, "Oh, K9, I wish you were here!"

Hanson narrowed his eyes at that remark. Keeping them covered with the gun, he immediately moved past the three women, putting them between himself and the opening, just as K9 came rolling in. The robot's super-sensitive hearing had picked up his mistress's call for help.

"Stand between me and the dog!" he yelled. "You come any closer, robot, and I'll shoot someone!"

K9 stayed perfectly still. Hanson made sure Romana stood directly between the robot and himself. The three women stood rigid with fear. There was no sound except for the spider energy discharging from the web.

"Somebody want to tell me who this nut is?" Angela asked.

"Alan, listen," Julia said. "This isn't worth it. You need to understand that the colony we're setting up at New Pacifica is much more important than any agenda you might have."

"You have no idea what my agenda is!" he snarled.

"Don't I? I used to work for the Council, too. So did this woman. You want to know about Reilly? I'll tell you about Reilly. He's not someone you can trust."

"Oh, and you are?"

"Much more so than him. He could have told you how to pilot the colony ship to rendezvous with him at G889, so why didn't he?"

"I told you!" he snapped. "Within a year, the planet would have caught up with the ship in its orbit. All I had to do was wait. It was all perfect until these two came along!" he pointed the gun at Romana.

"No, it wasn't perfect," Romana said, realizing where Julia was going with this. "The colony ship was orbiting the sun at normal velocity. It was hidden on the opposite side of the solar system for over two months. Eden Advance never once detected it in the sky. The two orbits matched. The planet would never have caught up with you. Reilly left you out there to die. You had already fulfilled your purpose."

"You're lying!"

"Then answer my question," Julia said. "Why didn't Reilly simply give you instructions over the radio on how to fly the ship? He could have, you know."

Hanson swallowed hard. He didn't say anything.

"Reilly betrayed you," Julia said, stepping forward a little.

Hanson stepped back, shaking his head. "No."

"Yes, he did. That's what he does. Tell me, what kind of bomb was planted on the outside of that fuel tank?"

"That wasn't my doing!" he screeched.

"I know it wasn't. That bomb was designed to kill everyone on board." Julia stepped forward some more. "Including you."

Hanson took two more steps back, shaking his head. "No. No, that's- that's not true!"

With that, he stretched his arm out fully, intending to kill Julia.

But he had taken one step too many. Just as he pulled the trigger, a burst of white energy wrapped around him, and he was gone.

Julia took the one remaining ice-spider from her jacket pocket and threw it into the web to join the brown ones. It caught on a strand and hung there. The web was neutralized, and the energy died away.

The tunnel was closed.

Hanson fired at Julia, but the bullet hit the wall of an icy cavern.

He stared about him in surprise. Suddenly, he was freezing. Hearing a vicious snarl, he spun around and screamed.

He was only able to fire once more as the wolves jumped him.

 

Shoving aside all thoughts of those who had died, Alonzo gritted his teeth and bucked the wind for every angle he could get.

"It's no use!" he cried. "We're never going to level out like this!"

"What would happen if we switched on the main engines again?" the Doctor yelled.

"No good!" Alonzo yelled back. "No maneuvering power!"

"What about emergency parachutes?"

"Not for a ship this size! Doctor, we've got to-"

Alonzo suddenly stopped as he looked at the ground coming up to meet them.

The ground.

"Hang on! Can you take over the entire ship? I've got to go somewhere!"

"There's nowhere you can go!" the Doctor shouted back. "If you leave your seat, the g-forces will send you across the room!"

"No! I've got to go somewhere in my head!" Alonzo tapped his temple.

The Doctor took over the controls. He was now balancing the descent with the retro thrusters as well as he could while simultaneously trying to catch the wind as Alonzo had done.

Alonzo tried to relax, found himself thinking of Julia. With an effort, he put her out of his mind. He focused on the Terrians.

And he entered the dream plane.

Time seemed to slow down. He felt himself deep in a cave. A Terrian appeared before him.

I need your help, Alonzo said. Many of us will die if you do not act quickly.

The Terrian stared at him curiously. After a moment, Alonzo got the sensation that the Terrian was asking for specific instructions.

Alonzo visualized what he needed, and felt resistance.

I know it won't be easy, he said. It will not be easy for us, either. Please help us.

The Terrian regarded him thoughtfully.

Please...

Alonzo opened his eyes. The Terrian had left him.

"Please..." he whispered.

And far below, a massive force of over 100 Terrians rose up from the ground.

Together, they stared up at the ship screaming down through their atmosphere. They watched silently, as if it was simply an interesting spectacle.

As one, they raised their staffs and charged them, lightning crackling on the tips, and fired a massive burst of energy which blinded the eyes. It roared up into the sky and exploded against the side of the vessel-

hurling the ship's nose high into the air.

All the doctors, children and their families in A ward screamed and tried to hold on as the ship tilted sharply, throwing them against the walls. Lights went out in a series of explosions, and fires broke out across the ward.

Alonzo and the Doctor immediately swung all thrusters straight down, struggling to keep the angle on life the Terrians had given them.

The Terrians looked on curiously as the ship roared by overhead.

Ahead of its path, more Terrians appeared. Popping out of the ground everywhere, they started grabbing any animals which were about to be crushed and pulled them down to safety. A family of Grendlers living in a small cave yelled in terror as Terrians pulled them into the earth just as the colony ship landed on G889 and disintegrated their home.

Alonzo and the Doctor held on. All they could do was watch helplessly as the ship skewed sideways and plowed on over the land with the noise of continuous thunder, sending trees and hills flying. Ahead of them, they could see Terrians dotting the landscape, rescuing all the living creatures they could find as the metal giant bore down on them.

The forward viewscreens cracked and sprayed glass over the two pilots, cutting their faces. They shut their eyes against the wind which roared through the opening. Then the forward part of the vessel struck the spur of a mountain and the ship spun around violently as it skidded across the land.

After about two miles, the ship finally ground to a halt.

The colonists had arrived.

Slowly, Alonzo opened his eyes and breathed deeply. His hand shaking, he numbly reached forward and activated a gear channel.

"Colony ship to Eden Advance," he said. "Devon, are you there?"

"We're here, Alonzo!" Julia replied.

Alonzo sat bolt upright. "Julia?" he asked.

"That's right!" his girlfriend answered. "We're alive! I was in the part of the ship that broke off, but a couple of spiders gave their lives for us!"

Alonzo was crying. "You're alive," was all he could say.

"Yeah," she answered. "We all are. You did it, this time, flyboy. You got it down."

"Yeah," he breathed, the tears running free. "I did it." Then he saw Terrians standing outside, some distance away, looking at him. He nodded to them, and turned to the Doctor.

"We all did it," he said.