The Song of Yarru, Chapter Eight
Jan. 12th, 2009 08:27 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
kalleahEpilogue to follow.
Previous Chapters
The Doctor unlocked the TARDIS and bounded into the console room, setting dials and levers in a flurry of activity.
Although he usually preened when he showed off his ship, he gave a cursory explanation to Watson that bordered on rude. "Travels in time and space. Dimensionally transcendent. Rose, at some point, remind me to do a recorded tour?"
Before Rose could remind him about his manners, Anahit entered the TARDIS, leading Aiku by the hand. As it had before, the timbre of the TARDIS' perpetual hum altered in the presence of the Tree Singers. Anahit's expression immediately softened as she vocalized in return, but her sister burst into tears instead.
"Aiku!" cried Rose. Anahit drew her sister into a close embrace and Rose reached out to stroke her hair in the way she knew comforted the Yarruni, but to her horror, she found a crust of dried blood in Aiku's rumpled hair. "She's hurt," she said. "Aiku, what happened to your head?"
The Doctor put a hand on Rose's shoulder and she stepped aside to let him scan Aiku with the sonic screwdriver. His already stormy face darkened at what he found.
"There's a chip under her scalp," said Watson from behind them. "The others implanted it to keep her from singing."
"I can't, I can't, I can't," sobbed Aiku, clutching at Anahit, who buried her head in her twin's shoulder and sobbed in return. The TARDIS hummed in soft comfort.
"Be still for a moment," the Doctor said. "It's just a magnetic coil placed under the skin. I promise, as soon as I can remove it, you'll be fine. Lean down for me a bit, like that?" He parted Aiku's hair and aimed the sonic screwdriver at the place that Rose could now see was bulging with a faint red line across it. "Anahit, numb her up?"
Anahit stood up and obliged. The song that she produced made Rose taste a metallic sharpness in her mouth, but Aiku was quiet and still while the Doctor removed the coil.
"There we are," he said, handing Aiku a clean, innocuous-looking metal square. She let it rest on her open palm for a moment and then sang a quick, sharp trill that dissolved the coil into a grey puff of powdery smoke. Her fist closed around the empty air.
"Now," said Anahit, putting her arm around her sister and wiping her own tears with her free hand. "Welcome." They hummed together in perfect concert, folding the sounds together over and over until they were a tight, multithreaded sound. There was no note of the vast power that had been used in rage and revenge for Aiku; there was only forgiveness and renewal.
Rose felt an echo of the powerful love she had shared on the night of the celebration – seemingly so long ago – and wanted nothing more than the Doctor's hand in hers. When she looked at him, he was already holding it out for her, his expression still tired but less angry than it had been a moment before.
When the Tree Singers stopped, Watson was sitting on the jump seat and holding on for dear life. "That's – that's extraordinary," he finally managed.
Aiku's smile spread across her whole face and she gingerly touched her head where the coil had been. "You have seen the worst of it, haven't you?" she asked Watson. "I would like to show you the rest."
"Doctor," Anahit interjected, "what are we going to do now? There will be – more of them, yes?" Her skin was pale under her fur and all of the comfort that she had taken from Aiku seemed to fade away.
Rose's stomach lurched as she thought of more men like the ones now dead on the survey station pouring onto the platforms of Yarru. How many could the Tree Singers bring down before they were overtaken? She had a brief, terrible vision of the sisters, hand in hand, singing death into the world and once again, the death sounds of the men on the survey station filled her ears.
"No," the Doctor responded. The ringing authority in his voice brought them all up short. "There will be no more." He turned to Watson, leaning back on the console and folding his arms. "Watson?"
Rose, Anahit, and Aiku stared at the scientist, who still held on tightly to the jump seat. "Yes. Well. There is a plan, that is, the Doctor suggested something. If I can help?" He directed the question to Anahit and Aiku.
For a moment, Anahit's distrust of the stranger was palpable, but some unspoken communication passed between the twins, and Aiku went to sit next to Watson. "You are honoured," she told him. "Thank you."
Anahit sat on the other side. "You helped to save my sister. You will have anything you want."
A brief smile flickered across his face. "I would like to hear the rest," he said longingly. They smiled and nodded. He looked from Anahit to Aiku and back again, and then over to the Doctor where he rested with one hip against the console.
"It's your choice," he said to Watson. "Anywhere in time and space."
The scientist turned, almost bashfully, to Aiku. "I need to disappear for a while, well, really, permanently," he said. "May I – would you mind if I – stayed with your people?"
The smile lit up her tired face. "It would be our great honour, George Watson." She put an arm around him and turned to rest her head against his shoulder, and from the other side, Anahit rubbed his forearm.
Rose, who was starting to follow along with at least part of the plan, wondered what they were going to do with Bell.
…
It felt like it should be the middle of the night, but it was morning when the party from the survey station arrived in the tree city. When Rose stepped out of the TARDIS, the slanting early light reached through the trees and forced her to shade her eyes. She stood to the side and watched Anahit and Aiku emerge onto the platform.
They were twins, but they were marked differently after the experiences of the night before. Anahit, with her killing knowledge, had slumped shoulders and dark circles under her eyes that were visible even under her fur. Aiku, in contrast, sucked in the humid air with visible relief and seemed to draw strength from the forest around her.
An exclamation – not a word, just a choked gasp of relief – brought Rose around and she saw Arri leap forward toward his wives. He pulled them into his chest and against one another, and he let out another sound, more like a sob. Rose averted her eyes and leaned against the Doctor's side, too familiar with the situation to stare.
Other Yarruni followed behind Arri, and while they left a respectful space around the reunited trio, they engulfed Rose, the Doctor, and even Watson, who looked boggled by the spectacle of the tree city.
If last night's celebration had been raucous and uninhibited, the morning seemed carefully choreographed. Rose felt a dozen furred hands touching her and heard murmured thanks. Cirryon, looking careworn but still beautiful, kissed her cheek without saying a word. Despite the press of bodies, the Doctor's hand stayed easily in hers, with the crowd parting around them where they were joined and surging back together behind them. There was a persistent rumbling hum in the air, and it took Rose some time where it came from. If she looked closely enough, she could see the ripple of fur on the furry throats where the Yarruni all hummed with those amazing syrinxes; it shone and danced in the sparkling light of the morning forest as their unrestrained bodies had done the night before.
The Doctor tugged gently at her hand and she nodded, allowing him to lead her wordlessly back into the TARDIS. Watson followed and closed the door behind them.
"Now, for business," the Doctor said briskly, and the two humans waited while he took them back to the survey station.
…
Watson finished his work in his office with the spectacle of Alpha Mensae d spread out around him. The hurricane, fully visible, spiralled gracefully in the southern ocean. He reached out and traced the edge of the storm against his window before dotting his index finger over the defined eye. His eyes filled with tears. He would gain so much with this decision, but he would lose this precious vantage point, soaring in the sky above the storm.
"You're a beauty," he said to his last storm, and then, sadly, "Goodbye."
The Doctor and Rose had left him alone for his packing, although he had so few personal possessions in such a small space that it hardly took him more than a few minutes. On a sudden impulse, he shouldered his pack and went to Bell's office, where he found the same spartan furnishings. Just as Watson had, Bell had brought a hologram display unit with some personal snapshots. He picked it up, considered, and added it to his pack.
"I'm finished," he told the duo waiting for him in the TARDIS when he returned.
Rose came around from behind the console where she had been huddled closely with the Doctor and hugged him. Watson awkwardly patted her on the back. She was smiling when she released him and he couldn't help but smile back, even with the anxious fluttering of his stomach and his frayed nerves.
"Let's do it," he told the Doctor.
…
Anahit and Aiku curled around Arri like kittens in their bedroom, where they had retreated from the Yarruni's celebration. He couldn't stop touching their faces. To Arri, who knew them best of all, their twin features were only the surface. He knew the slightly paler mark below Aiku's right eye from a childhood injury and the straight stance that made Anahit stand slightly taller, but more than that, he knew how they moved, how they laughed, how they were.
They had brought back more differences from their disappearance, he thought, and kissed Aiku's brow that furrowed more in thought, reached out to hold Anahit's shaking hand.
"Will you tell me what happened?" he asked quietly.
They exchanged a look, both as sisters and as his wives. Anahit put her head down and snuggled into his side. Aiku drew in a breath and sang sotto voce, just enough for the three of them to hear, painting a picture in song that she would never be able to put words to.
When she hushed, Arri closed his eyes. "My most beloved," he said to both of them, and then the words failed him as well.
Anahit lifted up from his side and reached across to touch her sister. "Forgive me?" she asked, her voice husky with deep emotion.
Aiku cupped the offered hand against her cheek. "I would have done the same for you. Yes. Always."
"Never again," said Anahit.
…
"A prison planet?" Rose asked.
"Oh yes," the Doctor said, pulling down a lever on the console and landing the TARDIS with only a slight bounce. "Not a new concept, really – humans have been transporting their unwanted petty criminals for centuries. Drop them somewhere remote and put them to work. This particular planet is famous – well, infamous – for its abundant bacterial colony farms. Cheap labour and a nutritious, if not delicious, product for the surrounding systems."
Adding another convict to the rosters of Yennovius Seven was quick work, and if Bell proclaimed his innocence, he was half a galaxy and several centuries removed from any harm to Alpha Mensae d.
The Doctor opened the door onto a rocky ledge overlooking a swiftly flowing river. Rose emerged and found herself under a grey sky hung low with clouds, the air thick and humid with unshed rain. Below them, the river snaked in a series of S patterns, with each curve dammed with a hanging net which bulged with some greyish detritus.
Watson led a still-sedated Bell behind him, although the other man was alert enough to walk on his own for the most part and look at the world around him.
The Doctor dropped a rucksack without ceremony on the rock face. "Welcome to Yennovius Seven, Mister Bell," he said grandly. "You'll have all the comforts of home. Well, not all, perhaps, but food, water, and shelter, and what more does a humanoid really need? You'll find the settlement that way." His voice was bright and cheerful but his eyes held no warmth or humour, and he didn't look directly at Bell as he gestured off into the grey distance.
…
After Rose returned to the TARDIS, Watson dropped to his knees next to his longtime partner, who was now sitting cross-legged on the rock and staring down over the river.
"You could have tried to stop them," Watson said. "Are you sorry now?" Tell me you're sorry, he pleaded inside. Help me understand.
Bell waved a hand in annoyance and refused to respond, so Watson drew upright and turned back to the TARDIS, where the Doctor leaned against the doorframe. Before he entered the ship, he turned and tossed the hologram display unit toward his former partner, who caught it and sullenly turned it over and over in his hands.
"Good man," said the Doctor quietly, and they closed the door behind them.
…
Rose sat on the jump seat and watched the Doctor work. He had recovered enough of his usual chipper exterior to rattle on a commentary to Watson, who looked on with interest and even asked a couple of questions.
Her eyes settled on Watson's pack, left casually against the wall. Involuntarily she remembered jaunting across the grass toward her mum's flat, with the Doctor's hand in hers, her own pack slung carelessly over her shoulder. She hadn't known when she had stuffed a few items into her pack that her life would change before she would ever have the chance to use them. Where was it now, she wondered? The Doctor had emptied the flat after Canary Wharf, and most of the contents were still stored away deep in the TARDIS. She felt a sudden urge to touch something that had belonged to her mother, but she gritted her teeth and stayed where she was.
"Last chance," said the Doctor, giving Watson a measuring look. He stepped away from the console completely, waving in the direction of the button that would sever the scientist's connection to the world he had known. "Your choice."
Watson looked from the Doctor to Rose to the button and then down at his own feet, which he shuffled nervously. "I don't see that we have another option," he said finally.
"There's always another option." The Doctor sank down on the jump seat next to Rose and joined his hands behind his neck, spreading out his elbows in a casual pose that fooled no one.
"Not that keeps the military off this planet."
"That's not what I said."
"Yes. Well. Thank you," Watson said. "I meant an option that prevents innocent people from being exploited."
Without hesitation, he brought down the first two fingers of his right hand on the button.
…
A beacon blinked into life in low planetary orbit around Alpha Mensae d, sending a signal out in Earth Standard and, for good measure, twenty-seven other recognized languages. Warning. This planet is quarantined due to contagion of unknown origin under the Avicenna Accords, Section Seven, Part Fourteen. It repeated the message every sixty seconds.
"See, Rose? It's mauve," the Doctor said, although Watson was hard pressed to guess why exactly that made him happy.
He watched the indicator and felt calm settle over him. It was done. They had sent an emergency signal to Command and to several military contacts, forging Sellick's authorization codes. The presumed Rear Admiral had declared a state of emergency on the survey station and regretfully informed his superiors that the homo cantans female had transmitted a haemorrhagic fever to the crew and that no one was expected to survive. Protocol dictated that the survey station would be steered into the atmosphere, where it would burn up, and a quarantine beacon placed in orbit.
Watson would live the rest of his life in the trees, surrounded by song, never to be crowded in a survey station again.
"I'm dead," he observed to the console room at large.
"Oh, me too," said Rose. "You get used to it."
Epilogue
Previous Chapters
The Doctor unlocked the TARDIS and bounded into the console room, setting dials and levers in a flurry of activity.
Although he usually preened when he showed off his ship, he gave a cursory explanation to Watson that bordered on rude. "Travels in time and space. Dimensionally transcendent. Rose, at some point, remind me to do a recorded tour?"
Before Rose could remind him about his manners, Anahit entered the TARDIS, leading Aiku by the hand. As it had before, the timbre of the TARDIS' perpetual hum altered in the presence of the Tree Singers. Anahit's expression immediately softened as she vocalized in return, but her sister burst into tears instead.
"Aiku!" cried Rose. Anahit drew her sister into a close embrace and Rose reached out to stroke her hair in the way she knew comforted the Yarruni, but to her horror, she found a crust of dried blood in Aiku's rumpled hair. "She's hurt," she said. "Aiku, what happened to your head?"
The Doctor put a hand on Rose's shoulder and she stepped aside to let him scan Aiku with the sonic screwdriver. His already stormy face darkened at what he found.
"There's a chip under her scalp," said Watson from behind them. "The others implanted it to keep her from singing."
"I can't, I can't, I can't," sobbed Aiku, clutching at Anahit, who buried her head in her twin's shoulder and sobbed in return. The TARDIS hummed in soft comfort.
"Be still for a moment," the Doctor said. "It's just a magnetic coil placed under the skin. I promise, as soon as I can remove it, you'll be fine. Lean down for me a bit, like that?" He parted Aiku's hair and aimed the sonic screwdriver at the place that Rose could now see was bulging with a faint red line across it. "Anahit, numb her up?"
Anahit stood up and obliged. The song that she produced made Rose taste a metallic sharpness in her mouth, but Aiku was quiet and still while the Doctor removed the coil.
"There we are," he said, handing Aiku a clean, innocuous-looking metal square. She let it rest on her open palm for a moment and then sang a quick, sharp trill that dissolved the coil into a grey puff of powdery smoke. Her fist closed around the empty air.
"Now," said Anahit, putting her arm around her sister and wiping her own tears with her free hand. "Welcome." They hummed together in perfect concert, folding the sounds together over and over until they were a tight, multithreaded sound. There was no note of the vast power that had been used in rage and revenge for Aiku; there was only forgiveness and renewal.
Rose felt an echo of the powerful love she had shared on the night of the celebration – seemingly so long ago – and wanted nothing more than the Doctor's hand in hers. When she looked at him, he was already holding it out for her, his expression still tired but less angry than it had been a moment before.
When the Tree Singers stopped, Watson was sitting on the jump seat and holding on for dear life. "That's – that's extraordinary," he finally managed.
Aiku's smile spread across her whole face and she gingerly touched her head where the coil had been. "You have seen the worst of it, haven't you?" she asked Watson. "I would like to show you the rest."
"Doctor," Anahit interjected, "what are we going to do now? There will be – more of them, yes?" Her skin was pale under her fur and all of the comfort that she had taken from Aiku seemed to fade away.
Rose's stomach lurched as she thought of more men like the ones now dead on the survey station pouring onto the platforms of Yarru. How many could the Tree Singers bring down before they were overtaken? She had a brief, terrible vision of the sisters, hand in hand, singing death into the world and once again, the death sounds of the men on the survey station filled her ears.
"No," the Doctor responded. The ringing authority in his voice brought them all up short. "There will be no more." He turned to Watson, leaning back on the console and folding his arms. "Watson?"
Rose, Anahit, and Aiku stared at the scientist, who still held on tightly to the jump seat. "Yes. Well. There is a plan, that is, the Doctor suggested something. If I can help?" He directed the question to Anahit and Aiku.
For a moment, Anahit's distrust of the stranger was palpable, but some unspoken communication passed between the twins, and Aiku went to sit next to Watson. "You are honoured," she told him. "Thank you."
Anahit sat on the other side. "You helped to save my sister. You will have anything you want."
A brief smile flickered across his face. "I would like to hear the rest," he said longingly. They smiled and nodded. He looked from Anahit to Aiku and back again, and then over to the Doctor where he rested with one hip against the console.
"It's your choice," he said to Watson. "Anywhere in time and space."
The scientist turned, almost bashfully, to Aiku. "I need to disappear for a while, well, really, permanently," he said. "May I – would you mind if I – stayed with your people?"
The smile lit up her tired face. "It would be our great honour, George Watson." She put an arm around him and turned to rest her head against his shoulder, and from the other side, Anahit rubbed his forearm.
Rose, who was starting to follow along with at least part of the plan, wondered what they were going to do with Bell.
…
It felt like it should be the middle of the night, but it was morning when the party from the survey station arrived in the tree city. When Rose stepped out of the TARDIS, the slanting early light reached through the trees and forced her to shade her eyes. She stood to the side and watched Anahit and Aiku emerge onto the platform.
They were twins, but they were marked differently after the experiences of the night before. Anahit, with her killing knowledge, had slumped shoulders and dark circles under her eyes that were visible even under her fur. Aiku, in contrast, sucked in the humid air with visible relief and seemed to draw strength from the forest around her.
An exclamation – not a word, just a choked gasp of relief – brought Rose around and she saw Arri leap forward toward his wives. He pulled them into his chest and against one another, and he let out another sound, more like a sob. Rose averted her eyes and leaned against the Doctor's side, too familiar with the situation to stare.
Other Yarruni followed behind Arri, and while they left a respectful space around the reunited trio, they engulfed Rose, the Doctor, and even Watson, who looked boggled by the spectacle of the tree city.
If last night's celebration had been raucous and uninhibited, the morning seemed carefully choreographed. Rose felt a dozen furred hands touching her and heard murmured thanks. Cirryon, looking careworn but still beautiful, kissed her cheek without saying a word. Despite the press of bodies, the Doctor's hand stayed easily in hers, with the crowd parting around them where they were joined and surging back together behind them. There was a persistent rumbling hum in the air, and it took Rose some time where it came from. If she looked closely enough, she could see the ripple of fur on the furry throats where the Yarruni all hummed with those amazing syrinxes; it shone and danced in the sparkling light of the morning forest as their unrestrained bodies had done the night before.
The Doctor tugged gently at her hand and she nodded, allowing him to lead her wordlessly back into the TARDIS. Watson followed and closed the door behind them.
"Now, for business," the Doctor said briskly, and the two humans waited while he took them back to the survey station.
…
Watson finished his work in his office with the spectacle of Alpha Mensae d spread out around him. The hurricane, fully visible, spiralled gracefully in the southern ocean. He reached out and traced the edge of the storm against his window before dotting his index finger over the defined eye. His eyes filled with tears. He would gain so much with this decision, but he would lose this precious vantage point, soaring in the sky above the storm.
"You're a beauty," he said to his last storm, and then, sadly, "Goodbye."
The Doctor and Rose had left him alone for his packing, although he had so few personal possessions in such a small space that it hardly took him more than a few minutes. On a sudden impulse, he shouldered his pack and went to Bell's office, where he found the same spartan furnishings. Just as Watson had, Bell had brought a hologram display unit with some personal snapshots. He picked it up, considered, and added it to his pack.
"I'm finished," he told the duo waiting for him in the TARDIS when he returned.
Rose came around from behind the console where she had been huddled closely with the Doctor and hugged him. Watson awkwardly patted her on the back. She was smiling when she released him and he couldn't help but smile back, even with the anxious fluttering of his stomach and his frayed nerves.
"Let's do it," he told the Doctor.
…
Anahit and Aiku curled around Arri like kittens in their bedroom, where they had retreated from the Yarruni's celebration. He couldn't stop touching their faces. To Arri, who knew them best of all, their twin features were only the surface. He knew the slightly paler mark below Aiku's right eye from a childhood injury and the straight stance that made Anahit stand slightly taller, but more than that, he knew how they moved, how they laughed, how they were.
They had brought back more differences from their disappearance, he thought, and kissed Aiku's brow that furrowed more in thought, reached out to hold Anahit's shaking hand.
"Will you tell me what happened?" he asked quietly.
They exchanged a look, both as sisters and as his wives. Anahit put her head down and snuggled into his side. Aiku drew in a breath and sang sotto voce, just enough for the three of them to hear, painting a picture in song that she would never be able to put words to.
When she hushed, Arri closed his eyes. "My most beloved," he said to both of them, and then the words failed him as well.
Anahit lifted up from his side and reached across to touch her sister. "Forgive me?" she asked, her voice husky with deep emotion.
Aiku cupped the offered hand against her cheek. "I would have done the same for you. Yes. Always."
"Never again," said Anahit.
…
"A prison planet?" Rose asked.
"Oh yes," the Doctor said, pulling down a lever on the console and landing the TARDIS with only a slight bounce. "Not a new concept, really – humans have been transporting their unwanted petty criminals for centuries. Drop them somewhere remote and put them to work. This particular planet is famous – well, infamous – for its abundant bacterial colony farms. Cheap labour and a nutritious, if not delicious, product for the surrounding systems."
Adding another convict to the rosters of Yennovius Seven was quick work, and if Bell proclaimed his innocence, he was half a galaxy and several centuries removed from any harm to Alpha Mensae d.
The Doctor opened the door onto a rocky ledge overlooking a swiftly flowing river. Rose emerged and found herself under a grey sky hung low with clouds, the air thick and humid with unshed rain. Below them, the river snaked in a series of S patterns, with each curve dammed with a hanging net which bulged with some greyish detritus.
Watson led a still-sedated Bell behind him, although the other man was alert enough to walk on his own for the most part and look at the world around him.
The Doctor dropped a rucksack without ceremony on the rock face. "Welcome to Yennovius Seven, Mister Bell," he said grandly. "You'll have all the comforts of home. Well, not all, perhaps, but food, water, and shelter, and what more does a humanoid really need? You'll find the settlement that way." His voice was bright and cheerful but his eyes held no warmth or humour, and he didn't look directly at Bell as he gestured off into the grey distance.
…
After Rose returned to the TARDIS, Watson dropped to his knees next to his longtime partner, who was now sitting cross-legged on the rock and staring down over the river.
"You could have tried to stop them," Watson said. "Are you sorry now?" Tell me you're sorry, he pleaded inside. Help me understand.
Bell waved a hand in annoyance and refused to respond, so Watson drew upright and turned back to the TARDIS, where the Doctor leaned against the doorframe. Before he entered the ship, he turned and tossed the hologram display unit toward his former partner, who caught it and sullenly turned it over and over in his hands.
"Good man," said the Doctor quietly, and they closed the door behind them.
…
Rose sat on the jump seat and watched the Doctor work. He had recovered enough of his usual chipper exterior to rattle on a commentary to Watson, who looked on with interest and even asked a couple of questions.
Her eyes settled on Watson's pack, left casually against the wall. Involuntarily she remembered jaunting across the grass toward her mum's flat, with the Doctor's hand in hers, her own pack slung carelessly over her shoulder. She hadn't known when she had stuffed a few items into her pack that her life would change before she would ever have the chance to use them. Where was it now, she wondered? The Doctor had emptied the flat after Canary Wharf, and most of the contents were still stored away deep in the TARDIS. She felt a sudden urge to touch something that had belonged to her mother, but she gritted her teeth and stayed where she was.
"Last chance," said the Doctor, giving Watson a measuring look. He stepped away from the console completely, waving in the direction of the button that would sever the scientist's connection to the world he had known. "Your choice."
Watson looked from the Doctor to Rose to the button and then down at his own feet, which he shuffled nervously. "I don't see that we have another option," he said finally.
"There's always another option." The Doctor sank down on the jump seat next to Rose and joined his hands behind his neck, spreading out his elbows in a casual pose that fooled no one.
"Not that keeps the military off this planet."
"That's not what I said."
"Yes. Well. Thank you," Watson said. "I meant an option that prevents innocent people from being exploited."
Without hesitation, he brought down the first two fingers of his right hand on the button.
…
A beacon blinked into life in low planetary orbit around Alpha Mensae d, sending a signal out in Earth Standard and, for good measure, twenty-seven other recognized languages. Warning. This planet is quarantined due to contagion of unknown origin under the Avicenna Accords, Section Seven, Part Fourteen. It repeated the message every sixty seconds.
"See, Rose? It's mauve," the Doctor said, although Watson was hard pressed to guess why exactly that made him happy.
He watched the indicator and felt calm settle over him. It was done. They had sent an emergency signal to Command and to several military contacts, forging Sellick's authorization codes. The presumed Rear Admiral had declared a state of emergency on the survey station and regretfully informed his superiors that the homo cantans female had transmitted a haemorrhagic fever to the crew and that no one was expected to survive. Protocol dictated that the survey station would be steered into the atmosphere, where it would burn up, and a quarantine beacon placed in orbit.
Watson would live the rest of his life in the trees, surrounded by song, never to be crowded in a survey station again.
"I'm dead," he observed to the console room at large.
"Oh, me too," said Rose. "You get used to it."
Epilogue
