THEY WERE RESCUED by the blundering arrival of a young human male.

He was wearing heavy plastic coveralls against the weather, and he was loaded down with bagfuls of sophisticated camera equipment. He was so preoccupied with checking the display on one of these devices that he wandered straight into the space between the Doctor and Martha and the beast that was about to spring at them.

The teenager’s head jerked up at the sound of the Doctor’s voice. ‘Get back!’ he yelled, as the sabre-tooth pounced. Martha found herself darting forward and grabbing the boy by his fur-lined hood and wrenching him to one side, where they both landed, full length in the frosty grass. She whipped her head around to see what was happening to the Doctor. He had flung himself straight at the tiger and then darted off in the other direction, giving several whooping cries in order to distract it.

Martha knew there was no time to waste. She was back on her feet and helping up the teenage boy. He was dazed and staring at her in shock. He was clutching his knapsack and, from the way it had crunched underneath them, most of his equipment was useless now. His face was pale and somehow arresting. Martha followed his gaze and saw that the Doctor and the sabre-tooth had gone very still again. Near-silence had fallen in the glade. What had happened? For one heart-stopping second she had seen her friend fall under the vast, savage bulk of the forest creature. But now, seconds later, here he was, standing and staring earnestly into the tiger’s eyes. The tiger was passive and mesmerised. The Doctor was speaking in a very low, persuasive voice.

He heard Martha step forward. ‘Don’t come any closer,’ he warned her gently. ‘She’s calm, but anything could break her mood. She’s hurt and frightened. Stay over there, Martha. We’re just having a little chat…’

Martha and the boy exchanged a mute glance. So he could talk to the animals now, could he?

‘See to your children,’ the Doctor was saying. ‘Do your best to get them to safety. You don’t need to harm us. Look after yourself. Hurry. There isn’t much time.’

The flanks of the great beast were heaving with fury and anguish. But, as the Doctor spoke to her, she was calming. She growled, low in her throat and it was almost a purr.

‘Go now,’ the Doctor told her. ‘We must all use the time wisely.’

The great cat turned on her heel and padded towards the trees once more. She spared them one more glance and Martha felt herself stiffen with fear. If that thing had decided it was going to kill them, they wouldn’t have stood a chance. She held her breath until the cat had been swallowed up by the trees, and the crackling and snapping of frozen undergrowth had faded away.

The Doctor turned to his companions with a colossal ‘Whewwww! Blimey!!’ of relief. ‘I’m glad that worked out. Could’ve been a bit messy otherwise.’

‘It was a sabre-toothed tiger!’ Martha gasped. ‘On an alien planet?’

The Doctor gave a carefree shrug. ‘They crop up everywhere. Maybe it’s a world of prehistoric beasties. Dunno.’ He fixed the teenage boy with a sharp stare. ‘And you are?’ Before the boy could reply, the Doctor shouted at him: ‘You could have been killed, bursting in like that! Couldn’t you see the danger? It was about twelve-foot long! Couldn’t you watch where you were going?’

The boy was trembling with delayed shock, Martha could see. He brushed his long black hair out of his eyes and faced up to the Doctor’s angry scrutiny. ‘I… didn’t see it. We don’t come out here much. I’m… not… used to it out… h-here.’ Suddenly he looked much younger and very, very scared. Martha judged that he couldn’t have been much more than fifteen. He was looking around the wintry glade with sheer terror and confusion. Martha was secretly pleased that she was dealing with being in this place so much better than this apparent native. Here she was on an alien world and – besides the sabre-tooth encounter – she was cool as anything.

The Doctor’s voice dropped and became kinder. ‘What’s your name, and who are you?’

‘Solin, sir—’

‘Doctor. And this is my friend, Martha. We’re here to help you.’

‘Help me?’

The Doctor nodded firmly. ‘You, your people. The human settlement here.’

‘My family,’ the boy said. ‘We are the only people here. Under the dome. In Dreamhome. There are only three of us.’

‘Three!’ the Doctor smiled. ‘Well, that should make things a bit easier.’

Solin’s face was creased with puzzlement. ‘But I don’t understand… Why would we need your help? We have everything we need in Dreamhome. Everything we will ever need. That’s what Father says.’

‘Hmm, he does, does he?’ smiled the Doctor. ‘Well, you saw what that sabre-tooth was like. She’s got wind of something. Something really, really bad is on its way.’ The Doctor did his heavy-frown thing, Martha noticed, when his eyebrows jumped and set themselves at a very serious angle. ‘You lot really need my help. And Martha’s. Martha’s help is indispensable, too.’

‘We already know something bad is coming,’ muttered the boy. He looked sullen.

‘What’s all this stuff?’ Martha was picking up pieces of futuristic equipment that had flown out of Solin’s knapsack. Solin took them from her, sighing at the damage. ‘I was taking pictures. That’s why I’m out here, in the forest. Normally I wouldn’t, but I thought… this is the last time, my last chance. And Father said he could send out the Staff and they would take all the pictures I wanted, of whatever I wanted. But it isn’t the same, is it?’

‘No,’ said Martha, though she couldn’t make head nor tail of what he was on about.

‘Why was it your last chance?’ asked the Doctor, testing him out.

Solin was tying up his bag and hoisting it onto his back. ‘Because my father says that we have to leave this world. We have to get aboard the ship that brought us here and go somewhere else. He has sensed the danger, too, Doctor. Same as that sabre-tooth did. He knows we have to leave here. We’re already going, Doctor.’

It took them some time to get through the woods onto the track that Solin assured them would lead to Dreamhome. As they went, ducking under branches and shimmying past trunks, the air was growing colder. The sky was closing in and darkening so they could see less and less of their new environment. There was something eerily quiet about the forest. To Martha, it seemed as if the whole place and all the remaining life forms in it were holding their breath. There was a curious atmosphere, of the whole place waiting for something dreadful to happen.

‘So you’ve lived here all your life?’ she called ahead to Solin, hoping that their voices would dissipate this feeling of anxiety.

‘I was born on the ship before we landed here,’ he replied. ‘I’ve never known anywhere else. This is my home.’

To Martha’s eyes, he seemed unaccustomed to being in the forest. He tripped and swore a couple of times as he led them through the undergrowth, and he seemed, at times, unsure of the direction to take. The Doctor was studying him carefully, Martha noticed, just as he studied the strange plant life, all petrified by frost as they made their gradual progress.

‘I’ve lived in Dreamhome all my life,’ Solin admitted. ‘Father says there isn’t much point in our going outside. All of this…’ he gestured at the twilit woods about them. ‘We can watch all of this on our screens. We can send out the staff for anything we might need from here. My father says it’s all much better for us, and safer, under the dome.’

‘I’m sure it is,’ said the Doctor thoughtfully. ‘But what about having a sense of adventure, eh? What about exploring places for yourself?’

Solin looked piqued. ‘Well, I’m out here, aren’t I? I’ve disobeyed Father.’

‘Quite,’ grinned the Doctor. ‘Well done.’ Martha could see that the Doctor wasn’t that impressed by Solin’s sense of adventure. But why would he be, Martha wondered. The Doctor wandered about at will through all time and space, insatiably curious and amazed by everything he saw and experienced. He was never afraid of what he might come up against, and he didn’t see why anyone else should be fearful, either.

‘You’re settlers from Earth, then?’ the Doctor asked. ‘A scientific expedition?’

Solin shook his head. ‘My father was a scientist once. But he retired here. He bought this world, many years ago.’

‘Bought?’ said the Doctor. ‘He must be rolling in it, your dad.’

‘He was an inventor, back on Earth. He made a lot of money in the Servo-furnishing industry.’

‘The what?’ Martha asked. But the Doctor shushed her. They had stopped at a gap in the trees. Ahead of them, in the frozen gloaming, the forest simply stopped. A shimmering force field blocked their way. And beyond it lay fresh spring grass, starred with daisies. A perfect lawn stretched several hundred yards ahead of them, running up to a series of verdant box hedges, which fitted neatly around what appeared to be a pale yellow mansion house.

‘Wow,’ Martha sighed. ‘That’s your Dreamhome, is it?’

Solin looked relieved to be within sight of the building. ‘That’s right. We made it here at last.’ He glanced at the dark forest at their backs. ‘We’re late. Father will be furious.’

‘Won’t he be alarmed, that we’ve come visiting?’ asked the Doctor.

‘It’s true, we’ve hardly ever had visitors here,’ Solin said, moving towards the rippling air of the force field. ‘A couple of old cronies of Father’s. But mostly he’s turned his back on the rest of the universe. I imagine it will be a pleasant surprise indeed, that you’re here.’

‘I hope he’s friendly,’ said the Doctor, pulling a face. He was carefully watching what Solin did, as the teenager approached what appeared to be an old-fashioned red pillar box in the middle of the forest clearing. He swung open a panel on the front and jabbed at the buttons inside. Frustratingly, neither the Doctor nor Martha could see exactly which buttons he pressed. Immediately, a gap opened up in the transparent shield.

‘Quickly,’ Solin told them. ‘The door only opens for twenty seconds at a time. It’s a security thing. And the shields have been a bit unreliable the past couple of days. We must go in right now.’

The Doctor grinned. ‘After you, Martha,’ he said, and bent to have a good look at the red pillar box. ‘I like the style of it. Techno gizmos and whatsits disguised as old Earth tat. Very stylish. I’m looking forward to meeting your father, Solin.’

Solin looked back at the Doctor and his face was glum and dark. Hmm, thought Martha, as she eased ahead and slipped through the door in the force shield. There’s something funny going on, definitely. That boy has got issues, I reckon.

But, in the meantime, Martha was bowled over by what she discovered on the other side of the doorway. As soon as she passed through the shimmering, hissing shield, she found that the temperature was suddenly like a balmy midsummer evening. The sky above was clear and glinting with alien stars. The lawn beneath her feet rippled gently with luscious grass. She stamped the thick, clodded snow off her boots and sighed deeply. ‘I think I’m going to like Dreamhome, Solin,’ she said.

The Doctor stepped up behind her, gazing appreciatively at their new trappings. ‘I wouldn’t get too used to it,’ he murmured in her ear. ‘Remember. The Voracious Craw’s on its way. This place’s days are numbered. Its hours are numbered. Its very minutes are ticking away…’

‘But this place is shielded…’ Martha said. ‘Surely the Craw thing can’t gobble its way through… Can it?’

‘Oooh, yes,’ nodded the Doctor. ‘And that’s why we’re here. To make sure they are sufficiently alarmed.’

As if on cue, a vile wailing noise erupted from the pillar box on the other side of the gap in the force shield. Martha and the Doctor covered their ears and whirled about to see Solin panicking at the controls.

‘What is it?’ the Doctor dashed over, brandishing his sonic screwdriver. He was like a gunslinger, Martha thought, the way that thing flew out of his pocket and into his hand.

‘It’s broken!’ Solin wailed, above the ghastly fracas. ‘Somehow… I’ve gone and broken the shields! Great holes are opening up all over the Dreamhome!’

The Doctor angled in to have a go with his sonic. ‘Never mind. I bet it’s the Craw affecting the circuitry. It’s bound to be. It sets up this great wave of interference before it strikes. Let me see. I’ll just have a…’

‘No, Doctor, you don’t understand,’ Solin cried. ‘The defences are down! They’ve never malfunctioned like this before! Dreamhome is vulnerable to outside attack now! And it’s all my fault! I’ve ruined everything!’