The next morning, in the Pie family’s rock farm, Maud was examining the new addition to her collection. After examining it closely, she put her hoof on it. For some reason, the rock didn't feel right. It had the cold feeling of metal, something definitely worth writing in her journal, which she did. After that, she decided to test the rock's strength. First, she tried kicking it hard. The large rock flew across the field and skidded about five times before rolling and stopping at the large pile of rocks which it had landed in the night before.
"Hmm," Maud hummed, "Pretty lightweight for something as big as that..." She rolled the rock back to where it was when she kicked it. "Okay...I'll need a small sample of you to look at." She went into her house and got a hammer and chisel. She put the chisel against the rock and hammered. Instead of chipping off a piece, however, the chisel simply slid along the surface of the rock. Maud raised an eyebrow. She tried again, and again, the tip of the chisel simply slid on the surface. Not even a speck of dust came off. She put the chisel down and tried the hammer alone. Again, nothing happened. Next, she picked up a rock about one-quarter the size of the rock she was studying. She rolled it up to the top of the rock pile and let it roll down again so it would hit the big rock. The smaller rock shattered.
Constant felt the Monitor shake again as he finished setting up a hydraulic system to keep water flowing in the contraption he had set up. He made sure the tubes inside the transparent cylindrical container were secure and turned the system on. Lights turned on to reveal the Dalek who had stowed away on his ship inside the container. The Dalek opened his eye slowly as Constant put a piece of the technology from the travel machine over the container.
"I...am...alive?" the Dalek asked.
"You stowed away on this time ship," Constant replied, "Then you tried to destroy it. You probably also tried to tamper with it's systems. Big mistake. It has a temper. You're just lucky you had to deal with me and not that."
The Dalek turned it's eye to Constant. "Who...are you?" he asked weakly.
"I AM CONSTANT!" he yelled.
The Dalek flinched slightly. "Why did you save my life?"
"Honestly, I don't know," Constant replied, "Part of me wants to believe that I need you to help me get back to our universe. Another part of me is saying that saving you was a waste of resources."
"Another universe?" the Dalek asked, clearly not believing it.
"That's right," Constant said, "Another universe. That's why your temporal displacement unit went out. And speaking of which..." Constant showed said component to the Dalek, "It shorted out. I can't fix this, and even if I could, I don't know if it will work in this universe. We're both stran"--- Another quake stopped Constant from finishing his sentence. He sighed and went to a nearby console to get an external view. "Whatever's doing that is getting on my nerves," he said. He looked at the screen and what he saw made him freeze. There was a grey equinoid creature pounding at the hull of the Monitor. "Huh...She looks like an equine of some sort...although the coloration of her fur and mane puzzle me...Not to mention the fact that she's wearing...some kind of dress."
"Does it not concern you more that we have been exposed?" the Dalek asked.
"There's no guarantee that we are exposed, Dal---" Constant stopped himself, "Do you even have a designation or a name?"
"I will not reveal my identifying information to you," the Dalek snapped.
"Fine," Constant snapped back, "I'll just call you 'Jethrek', then. I'm getting sick of just calling you 'Dalek'."
"If you wish," Jethrek replied.
Then Constant looked at the screen again. "Uh..oh..." he said.
"That statement indicates that you predict danger," Jethrek stated, "Explain."
"In automatic settings," Constant explained, "this time ship was designed to attack a determined threat. So far, it doesn't see that equine as a threat. She's merely hitting the hull, and probably trying to move it. Eventually, though, the computers will calculate that she is a threat."
"Then let the ship exterminate her," Jethrek said.
Constant wanted to hit Jethrek so hard in the face for saying that, but he remembered that he was in a life support container, so he yelled at him instead. "SILENCE FROM YOU!"
Maud kept pounding and kicking at the mysterious rock with everything she had. After a while, she stopped, out of breath, and feeling half-worn out. She looked again to her subject. "Hmm...tough rock," she commented to herself. She then heard hoofsteps, and saw that her client had arrived. She got up, and went to talk to the client. "Right this way," she said, leading him to the cart of stone she had ready.
Constant, seeing all this happen on the screen, pondered. "Alternate universe indeed. No equine on Earth in our universe has developed speech. Alright, so the Monitor is currently camouflaged as a rock. So the equine must believe that she can make something out of it...probably a sculpture, or a stone path."
"Your statement indicates that she will continue to attempt to break the hull," Jethrek observed.
"Exactly," Constant sighed. He called for another viewing angle on the screen. He zoomed the view and saw the grey equine talking to another taller, green-furred equine. When he saw the rail cart of stone that the taller equine was looking over, it became clear to him. "We're disguised as a rock...in...a rock farm," he stated, worried, "We've got to get out of here."
"Would you risk exposing us?" Jethrek asked. His eye clearly had the look that said "Are you serious?"
"I'm not phasing us out just yet, Jethrek!" Constant replied, "I'm going to wait for the right moment!"
"Wise decision."
Constant sighed. "And Jethrek...I don't mean to sound like an angry father ranting at his child, but when we get out of this situation, you and I are having a talk about kill or no kill decisions!"
Jethrek glared at Constant, who walked back to the control room, leaving him behind to think about his new situation.