Vanderdeken's Children

by Christopher Bulis

  'You know Dan can't stay here,' she said.'I've got to take him back to the ship. His parents... his other parents will be worried about him. I'll tell the Doctor about you. He'll do all he can to help. Somehow. I promise.'

  The ghostly version of Jeni Engers had dropped her hand from Dan's cheek and bowed her head. Her companion put his hand on her shoulder.

  Dan Junior looked at her with curious eyes, then knelt before her so that he could look up into her face.

  'There may be nothing anyone can do,' the man said. 'It may never end... or it might start all over again.You see, we can't remember how it began!'

  Sam didn't understand half of what he was saying and now was not the time to waste talking.

  'I'm sorry, but we must get back to the alien ship. I know the Doctor will come looking for me and that's where he'll start. If he's there you can tell him all this yourself.'

  The man nodded slowly.'I'll go ahead first to see if it's safe.The mad ones were there the last time.' He looked sorrowfully down at his wife. 'Let her stay with him a little longer. She won't be any trouble.'

  He left the cave, moving one leg stiffly. Sam remembered the real Daniel Engers being hit by the ghost - his own wife it now seemed! - when Dan was taken. Hadn't he fallen clutching at his leg? 'Nothing changes,' he had said. How long had they been here?'

  Sam suddenly felt very tired and sat down on a packing case. How would she explain this to his real parents? Or were these his real parents?

  For a while neither the ghost nor Dan Junior moved or spoke.Then Sam saw Dan tentatively reach out and touch her hair, which formed a misty halo round her head. He shivered slightly but did not pull back. His fingers brushed across it, momentarily adding substance until it caught and reflected the light like dewdrops in the sun. 'Is it really you, Mum?' he said.

  ***

  Sam must have dozed, for suddenly Engers was standing before her. Dan Junior and the ethereal image of his mother were sitting close together amid the loose packing cases on the other side of the cave. There was no fear between them now, only sadness.

  Sam blinked.'What is it?'

  'Shuttles came through the central core of the alien ship. One was Emindian, the other Nimosian, I think.They are headed for the port.'

  'The port?' Sam realised there was so much she didn't know.'Never mind.

  Can you take us there?'

  ***

  The two shuttles rested side by side on a twilit terrace of the dead starport.

  Vega had ordered his marines into a defensive circle about the craft.They were all armed with copies of the Doctor's normaliser. He wondered how soon they would have to use them.

  A large blue box, apparently belonging to the Doctor, had been lowered from the Emindian shuttle's belly hatch and easily set right side up in the low gravity. The Doctor had then disappeared inside it, promising answers to impossible questions. Curiously, Vega realised the box resembled the probe he'd ordered destroyed during the initial confrontation with Lanchard over the alien ship. (Had that been only two days ago?) They never had discovered where it had come from - too much else had been happening to allow time for such speculation. Anyway, it must just be a chance resemblance since the probe had been destroyed and could hardly now be a piece of the Doctor's luggage. Yet, there had been something odd about the light that had poured out of its doorway, and for a moment Vega had thought he had seen...

  No, he must have been mistaken.

  The other members of the Emindian party stood about looking numbly at the desolation of their home port. Even Rexton seemed overawed and lost for words.Vega almost felt sorry for him.The image of dead Emindar would haunt his own dreams long enough as it was.

  The Doctor emerged from his box. Behind the faceplate of his helmet he looked grave as he turned to the Emindians.

  'I'm sorry, but I had to confirm certain facts.There's no doubt about it. We are a little over twenty years in the future, relative to the time you think of as the present. Emindar is dead and abandoned -destroyed by pollution from radioactive, chemical and biological weapons that were used in the war with Nimos. From the decay readings, this war ended a year after we crossed the hyperspatial bridge that brought us here.'

  'But that's ridiculous, impossible!' Rexton exclaimed, coming out of his torpor.

  'It's true,' said Delray in an earnest but curiously flat voice. 'You know where we are as well as the rest of us. You saw what's left of Emindar. Do you think all this could have happened since we left and nobody back home told us? Believe him.'

  Rexton could only shake his head, as though determined to deny the truth to the bitter end.

  Bendix asked the Doctor,'But how can you know these things?'

  'I'll explain shortly,' the Doctor assured him. 'But I'm afraid there's more. I take it this base has a hyperwave communicator. Where is it?'

  "The communication centre's over there.' Bendix pointed to a building on the next terrace up.'Why?'

  'Because if it's still functioning, it will be the quickest way to prove the rest of what I have to tell you.' He looked at Vega. 'You must come as well.'

  Vega felt a sudden coldness touch his heart.

  With a small escort of guards they tramped across the terrace and up a broad flight of steps. The nearest of the building's external airlocks was still intact, a long-life emergency bulb still burning forlornly above it.The marines entered first, then waved them inside. There was minimal pressure within and they kept their suits sealed. The interior appeared undamaged, but when Bendix led them through to the main operations room, they found a few desiccated corpses and some blackened scars on the walls. The equipment, however, seemed largely undamaged. Bendix examined the active displays. Solid-state switches still functioned and brought more screens into life.

  'The reserve batteries have fifty-six per cent power. Enough to activate the relay. Backups are on line.The system checks functional.' He suddenly looked lost. 'But who are we calling?'

  "That's up to Commander Vega,' the Doctor said, 'but I suggest he should attempt to contact his High Command on Nimos. If he can."

  'What are you saying, Doctor?'Vega demanded, knowing already.

  "That Nimos is also dead, destroyed in the same war as Emindar. I'm not being cruel, but you must convince yourself that I am speaking the truth.'

  Vega turned to the console, adjusted the settings and called the High Command. Its channel was never left unmanned. But there was no reply.

  He tried Government Central, Spatial Dispatch, the Commercial Shipping Coordinator's Office, the emergency channel...

  They were all dead, filled only by static.

  'If there was a war they may have changed frequencies...' he said desperately. But he knew he was clutching at straws. There was nobody there to respond to his signals.They were gone.

  'Nimos suffered even more than Emindar,' the Doctor said sadly. 'It will never be habitable again. All that remains of your two peoples are handfuls of scattered survivors who will settle on far distant worlds and try to forget their past. This sector of space has been so badly traumatised by the war that it will remain a shunned backwater for millennia -'

  'How do you know this!'Vega demanded, his composure strained almost to its limits.'You can't be a Moderator. What are you?'

  'I'm a time traveller,' the Doctor said with simple dignity. 'A Time Lord. And I would like to help you if I can.'

  'Help us!' Bendix almost shouted, breaking into a sudden outburst of despair. 'We've lost our families, our homes... How can you help us?'

  The Doctor took him by the shoulders and stared straight into his eyes.

  'You and your companions still live,' he said with passionate unwavering conviction.'You're virtually your worlds' sole legacy.That must not be lost to the universe. Who knows? You may yet have a part to play in the greater whole. Don't give up.'

  'I'll never give up,' Rexton said, his voice brittle. 'My duty is to my planet. I will not let it become what we have seen out there. We will go bac
k and stop it.'

  'Unfortunately; said the Doctor,'that may not be possible.'

  They stared at him in horror.

  'What do you mean?' said Vega.'You just said we shouldn't give up.'

  'I mean this is how it has been and will always be and you have become inextricably linked with it. Your past and future are feeding off each other.

  What we've experienced on the other side of the hyperspatial tunnel and now what we've seen here suggests this is all part of a self-perpetuating loop in time, centred around a single alien ship.'

  'But there are two ships -' Bendix began.

  'Quiet!' Rexton barked, glaring defiantly at the suddenly suspicious eyes of the Nimosians.

  'No,' said the Doctor almost wearily,'there is only one ship. There has always only ever been one. Haven't you realised that yet? It's part of the loop and we've all been drawn into it. And there may not be a way out.'

  Chapter 31

  The Warning

  The long silence following the Doctor's words was broken by one of the marines calling urgently over the helmet circuit:

  'Movement outside! Two figures approaching... I can see right through them!'

  'Wait!' the Doctor said.'Do they look human?'

  'Uh... yes:

  'Are they armed?'Vega asked.

  'Not that can see, sir.'

  There was a strange expression on the Doctor's face.'Let them pass. I think we've been expected.'

  The two figures entered the communications room a moment later, with marines edging backwards about them, keeping them under their guns. A man and a woman in uniform, as pale as wraiths but moving like humans and without any outward menace. There was something very familiar about their uniforms...

  'Captain!' Bendix choked out.

  The woman was the image of Captain Lanchard.

  And the man, Vega realised, was the image of himself The others saw it too, glancing incredulously back and forth between them.

  Vega felt himself come as close as he ever would to blacking out, but with a supreme effort regained control. He would not show such weakness in front of foreigners.

  The two figures halted in the centre of the group. They held up their wristcoms with very deliberate gestures before beginning to speak into them.

  'Search for their channel,' the Doctor said, adjusting his suit frequency receptor.

  On maximum amplification, their words came through faint but clear:'... can you hear us now?'

  'Yes,' said the Doctor loudly. 'We can hear you.'

  'I thought I remembered coming here,' said the thing that looked like Vega,

  'but I could not be sure. It was so long ago...'

  'We thought it best to allow you time to discover some of the truth for yourselves,' said the ghost of Lanchard. 'Now there is no need for concealment. Cirrandaria , power up.'

  Out across the dark hollow of the port the graceful form of the starliner appeared hovering by a docking boom. It was glowing softly from within, lit by a thousand faint lights. At its heart pulsed the unearthly radiance of its power core, all encompassed by a structure seemingly as insubstantial as spun glass. It was startlingly beautiful yet so forlorn amid the ruins.

  'I think I'm beginning to understand what's happened,' said the Doctor,'but please explain anyway.'

  'We shall,'Vega heard his doppelganger say. It looked into his eyes. 'You will believe me, if nobody else. There is little time left, but you must learn the truth so you won't make the same mistakes. I think something will happen soon...'

  'Don't you know?' he asked.

  His image touched its head as though trying to concentrate. 'Nothing changes for us.We do not age.All memories are now and the past at the same moment. We think twenty years have passed. Is that correct?'

  'That's right,' the Doctor confirmed. 'Go on.'

  'Something will happen back there, on the other side of the space-time corridor, that will make us like this. But none of us can remember what. I and many other Nimosians found ourselves on the Cirrandaria . There was no sign of the Indomitable . The ship was drifting in space as you see it now. There was no response on the hyperwave. Only the radio functioned, and that barely at all. So we came here. I think the trip took a long time.

  Hard to tell when you don't feel hunger... you don't sleep.And the engines don't interact with the continuum as they should...' He trailed off vaguely.

  Vega felt sickened to see himself so incapable.

  'And when you got here?' the Doctor prompted.

  'It was like this,' the Lanchard image continued.'We found the alien ship in the navy port.We remembered it from before.They must have brought it here as the war was coming to an end, but we think they were overrun before they could use it.'

  'How did the war start?' Rexton asked intently.

  'We don't know. There are records here saying the loss of the Cirrandaria helped start it, but the details are confused. Not that it mattered.That was the end for many of us.They went mad. We had to confine them below decks.When you are like this and forget who you are, when you stop concentrating... your mind shapes your body.You change. Sometimes you become something out of your nightmares.'

  'But not all of you,' Bendix said.

  'No,' the Lanchard ghost admitted. 'Those who can best keep control guard them. It's dangerous; their madness is infective. Guns don't work well against them so we made armoured suits, and use nets and tridents made out of materials from the Cirrandaria .Those are the only things that still feel solid to us - apart from the alien ship. It seems to exist in many different states of being. We can just manage to work with its systems. We found that the controls on its bridge were labelled. They showed it was meant to work through time and space. So we tried to learn how to use it. We had nothing better to do...' She laughed bitterly. 'And time was not a problem.

  We had to stop it happening again.'

  'But even if you could change the past, you might simply cease to exist,' the Doctor said.

  'That would be a release,' Vega's ghost said.'Don't you see? We can't die!'

  Bendix's expression was tortured. In the silence that followed he said,

  'Captain, I have to know: am I here?'

  The shade of Lanchard looked at him curiously for a moment, then said, 'I remember... it's Bendix, isn't it? No, you're not here.' She glanced at Rexton.'Nor are you. Perhaps that means you survive.'

  Rexton's lips tightened, but he said nothing.

  The Doctor, his face very grave, said,'I will do all I can to help you. But by using the alien ship, you may have made things worse for yourself.'

  'It wasn't how we planned,' Lanchard's ghost explained wretchedly. 'Just after we activated it some of the insane broke free and scattered all over the base.We had to recall the crew from the alien ship to help recapture them. We tried to keep them away from you, but some got past us.

  Otherwise we would have been there to meet you when you boarded the first time, to explain and to warn you. But instead some of the more controlled ones must have got on to your shuttles when you first arrived.

  Others hid, waiting to try to cross over if you came close enough. It's contact with living things, you see. It's the only time you can feel properly, to remember what it was like.

  She trailed off, as though exhausted by the effort of speaking, or by the memory of what she had lost. Her image seemed to grow paler and shivered slightly.

  Vega's ghost continued, 'We finally recaptured most of the remaining insane ones when they returned from their raid on you.We took advantage of their trap to send a shuttle to bring one of you back here, so we could show you the future. It would have returned the person safely later, but it crashed.'

  'It was Sam Jones, my assistant,' the Doctor said quickly. 'Is she all right?'

  'We don't know. I am sorry.'

  'Where are the other people they took?'Vega asked.

  'The survivors are being kept safe a little way from here. Most are badly shocked and do not understand what has happened
to them. You must take them away.They are a... temptation while they remain here. I think there are ships back there preparing to fight. You must stop them. Tell them what you have seen. Both for Nimos and Emindar.'

  Vega nodded. 'I'll tell them. If they will believe me.' He looked at Rexton.'Will you help prevent this tragedy, Councillor?'

  'I won't let this happen to Emindar,' Rexton stated bluntly. He glanced at the Doctor. 'Even if he says there's no chance of changing anything.'

  'I didn't say there was no chance,' the Doctor corrected him. "There may be a slim possibility of making some slight modification to the timeline, and you wouldn't be human if you didn't try to take it. But if there is to be a change, it must be made at a crucial junction in the course of events. The place where a single word or action has the greatest effect.'

  'Well, I don't believe the future is immutable,' Rexton said defiantly.

  'Whatever you say, while there is free will, there are always alternatives!'

  'Free will may be where it all began in the first place,' the Doctor replied heavily. He turned to the ghosts. 'Please take us to the survivors. Let's do what we can for them.'

  The survivors had been housed in one of the port lounges that still held its pressure. They huddled together in a state of utter bewilderment, shrinking back from the heavily armoured ghost people who stood guard over them.

  There were a handful of Nimosian marines, a few crew from the Cirrandaria and thirty or so civilian passengers. There was a rising murmur of surprise and hope when the rescue party appeared.

  Vega looked for Lio Reng amid the haggard faces. Some were curled up on makeshift pallets made from chair seats. He examined them all, but Lio was not among them. He turned despondently to see the same expression of dashed hope on the Doctor's face.

  'My assistant is still missing,' he said. 'And a couple of others I was specially hoping to find. One was a small boy.'

  Vega was moved to say, "They may still be alive. I am also missing some men. We shall not give up.'