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6. Buried in trouble

  All was still at the bottom of the abyss. Great walls of bright white and intense light blue frozen snow and ice formed the sides of the deep crack in which Lynne and Mickey were now trapped. They were buried underneath a big pile of snow.

  When Mickey woke up it was dark. He didn't see anything and he could only hear the sound of his own heart pounding. As he woke up a bit more he began to regain the feeling in his extremities. He felt sour all over his body, but mostly his legs hurt.

  Then Mickey worked up the will to open his eyes. He carefully opened them but it remained dark.

  At that moment he began to panic and he discovered that he couldn't move either. He let out a desperate cry, but the sound didn't seem to get far. Mickey was engulfed with fear. He was buried underneath a layer of snow and he couldn't move, nor hear or see anything.

  Though not far from him, someone seemed to have made a lucky escape, or maybe not. It was the dog, Laika. She was not buried, but lay motionless on top of the pile of snow.

  ---

  "Doctor, I think you know very well what is going on. And it's not about us, but it's got to do with you. Tell me, what is it they blame you for?" Rose demanded an explanation.

  "The ice." Annika said gravely.

  "What? He couldn't have been responsible for freezing the entire planet over, could you?" Rose said, her head tilted and her eyes wide with disbelief.

  "You must have thought we'd have forgotten by now. To the contrary, everyone knows the story, everyone knows about you and what you have done, Doctor." Annika said.

  The Doctor merely glanced from Rose to Annika and back to Rose with a grave but emotionless face. Both women looked at him for an explanation to this whole situation. Once they had gone silent, the Doctor doubted whether he should tell them what he knew, though to be honest, that wasn't very much.

  "I could not stop it from happening then and I can't help it now." the Doctor said testy.

  "Can't you go back to prevent it?" Rose asked.

  "You know very well I can't, Rose." he snapped to her. "Can you take us down now, please?" he said to Annika and sat himself down on a chair all the way in the corner of the elevator's lounge.

  "Is he always so sulky?" Annika asked Rose as they walked up to the control panel.

  Rose glanced over at the Doctor but didn't answer Annika's question.

  She helped the elevator's pilot to disconnect from the platform. The elevator slowly but noisily set to motion. It was soon going back down to the Earth's surface at a steady but quick pace.

  The three didn't have time to sit and sulk for long because all sorts of warning lights began to flicker on the control panel.

  Annika hastily tried to compensate but every time more warning lights came on.

  "Something is wrong. I had the elevator fixed before we left the City but there are things breaking one after the other." she said to her passengers.

  Rose was worried and tried to lend Annika a hand but the Doctor didn't look as if he was about to get up and help.

  "If these malfunctions keep adding up, I will lose control over the elevator." Annika added.

  "You mean we'll go into a free fall then?" Rose asked distraught.

  "Only if main power fails, then the elevator will no longer be able to stay attached to the cable.

  I will try to make a full stop and then take us back up to the City where we can secure it to the docking platform." Annika said reassuringly. "Still, I don't understand what the cause of all this trouble is. Why aren't any systems being repaired?" she muttered while trying to control the jolting and sparking elevator.

  "Okay. Sounds like a plan, or part of a plan anyway, and it looks like you can use some help. What can I do?" Rose offered eagerly.

  The Doctor observed her from his spot in the corner. He truly liked the way Rose would get tough when things got serious. It was one of the reasons he had decided to ask her to come along.

  "When the indicator light goes on, push this button and pull this lever down. Make sure it goes all the way down. The elevator should slow down and I will reverse the magnet polarity and restart the engine. Next: same routine; light off, push button, lever up. Again all the way up. Got that?" Annika explained quickly, while the Doctor was still observing them with great interest.

  "Light, button, lever. Got it." Rose said confidently.

  "Right here we go." Annika said and left trough a hatch to the maintenance corridors.

  Patiently the Doctor sat back and waited to see what would happen and whether it would work.

  Rose kept her eyes on the indicator lights, ready to execute the routine as soon as it would light up.

  It wasn't long before the light blipped on and she pushed the lever down with a strong jerk. As a result the elevator began to slow down and eventually came to a halt. Rose allowed a smile to appear on her concentrated face and the Doctor felt proud of her too.

  "There's the light. Press the button? and pull? the lever." Rose said to herself as she executed the routine again. She gave a hard jerk on the lever, but it moved only half way. "Come on, all the way, you silly thing. Up!" she shouted at the lever, but despite her best efforts it didn't move.

  "We're not moving upwards Rose, the lever!" Annika shouted through the hatch.

  "I can't get the lever back up again, Annika. It's stuck. Now what?" Rose said and glanced at the Doctor who was sitting in the corner and had moved to the tip of his seat. He had an anxious expression now, looking through his glasses at all the indicators and gages.

  "Now we can't move up to the City anymore. The only thing we can do now is secure the elevator to the cable by deploying the clamps, manually. Hurry, before the power fails, or else?" Annika said looking desperately worried and scared.

  "?we will fall towards the planet's surface with enormous speed and crash. Let's go!" the Doctor finished the sentence and he jumped up from his seat purposefully.

  Annika showed the way through the maintenance corridors to the generator and the docking clamps. Rose and the Doctor followed her at a running pace.

  His sulking mood was replaced by his well known determinate attitude. There was trouble and he was the one going to fix it, because he had no desire to crash on a frozen uninhabited planet due to some faulty wiring? and he had promised. He promised Jacky to bring Rose back safely.