by Paul Cornell
There was only peaceful and starlit night.
The Doctor left the children in the centre of Manchester, in daytime, and watched as they staggered off into the streets, leaning on each other for support.
He sniffed the air. It was going to be a fresh and rainy day, a cold wind coming down from the north. The city was recovering, the forces of business and family forcing people back into the regular patterns of their life. There was something muted about the place, perhaps. It wasn't going to enjoy its first natural night. But at least there would be a dawn to follow it.
"Doctor," asked Nyssa, "are there any vampires left here?"
"Oh yes, I dare say a few got away." The Doctor closed the doors of Ruath's TARDIS and selected a new destination, setting the capsule in flight once more. "But their numbers have been cut back to below what they were when this all started. They've resumed their place in the natural way of things. Any that have been created since then, remember, will have been freed."
"And now that Yarven's dead, those infested with his genetic material won't turn into vampires?"
"Indeed not. If they were sheltered from the sun, they'll be fine."
Nyssa hugged him. "Thank you," she whispered and began to cry, the tears that she'd held back for so long finally fighting their way to the surface. "The things I saw, the things I did . ."
Tegan hugged her too. "Hey, we all do stuff we regret. Usually when somebody else is in charge." She smiled up at the Doctor.
But he was deep in thought.
Ruath's TARDIS landed in the forest, a few yards from the familiar police box shape of the Doctor's own vehicle. For a few seconds, it stood there, then a bizarre change in shape occurred. A thin liquid arm sped out from it, and contacted the door of the police box. Just as quickly as it had protruded, it snapped back.
The Doctor ushered his companions outside and ran after them a moment later, slamming the door of the white capsule behind him. "Three ... two ... one!" he counted, and the box faded away. "Sent it back to Gallifrey," he explained. "They can always do with an extra TARDIS or two, and I dare say that Ruath stole it in the first place." He fished in his pockets and pulled out the TARDIS key to open the door of the police box.
"What a terrible thing to do," Nyssa opined. The Doctor gave her a severe frown as he let the two young women enter the box before him. Then he followed them and closed the door.
The TARDIS faded away.
The Doctor was glad that both of his friends were too exhausted to question his condition. They'd headed for their rooms as soon as the TARDIS had entered the vortex. And he didn't blame them. Sometimes their emotional and physical strength astonished him.
He tapped out a sequence of random co-ordinates, his mind elsewhere. If he was still a vampire, then Ruath was standing behind him.
She walked out of his peripheral vision, over to the other side of the console. "Then I'm still alive. I can read you like a book, Theta."
The Doctor closed his mouth, covering the fangs that had grown there. "I knew you'd come."
"As soon as Yarven was distracted enough to relax his mental paralysis, I slipped down through the cracks. A little bolt-hole I'd prepared inside my console. Nice and dark."
"Why are you still a vampire?" The Doctor frowned.
"Because I haven't stepped outside the null-time field of a TARDIS. I used one of our old chameleon circuit tricks to transfer between vehicles. I think you taught me that one, actually."
The Doctor ignored her friendly tone. "Well, since your plans have hit a snag, perhaps you'd do me the service of stepping outside at our next destination. You might be fond of this condition, but I can't say it suits me, I'm afraid."
Ruath shook her head. "I wish I could leave all this behind, but it's too late. I have to fulfil the destiny set in motion by Agonal, Yarven and the Great Vampire."
"How? What strategy can you possibly have left?"
"If you want to be free of this curse, Theta, you're going to take this TARDIS of yours back to the Dark Time."
The Doctor shook his head sadly. "You know that's -"
"We're going to find Rassilon, to see what really happened, to bring the Great Vampire into Gallifrey's time zone."
He stared at her. "You know, I knew you were dedicated when I saw you, that last time at the Panopticon Library. I knew that in your hearts you didn't want to leave."
"Don't try to distract me."
"That's why I decided not to meet you at the appointed rendezvous. I left you a message."
Ruath was blinking, her mouth open. "You ... you decided to leave me behind? I found no message, I - " The Doctor pressed home his advantage, circling the console, his eyes never leaving Ruath's. "I didn't think you were up to making all the choices that the life of a renegade demands. I thought that you'd do better for our people as a political rebel, as a voice on the inside." He stopped in front of her, his face inches from hers. "And until very recently I thought I'd made the right decision."
"So ... you're saying you should have taken me with you?" Ruath broke into a vast smile.
"Yes," the Doctor whispered. "Because then perhaps you wouldn't have let your dedication twist into insanity."
Ruath roared and slapped at him, but the Doctor caught the blow before it struck him. "What about the books?" she shouted. "What about this ring?"
"You always did set too much store by history. Exactly the opposite point of view to my class. Those books might have been lies, written by Rassilon's enemies. Or they might have been half-truths or muddled legends. I don't know what's happened to Gallifrey, if anything has, but I do know that civilizations have natural lives and deaths, and that no amount of empire building or dictatorship can change that. We all make our own destiny. If you're looking for truth, Ruath, don't look at history. History is a lie."
"You said that you'd take me away! You said you'd save me!"
"And in the Library you said that it was the duty of every loyal Gallifreyan to stay. Typical vampire logic. The rules only apply to other people."
"I'll kill you! I'll kill you!"
"Listen! We're going to land somewhere in a few minutes. Step outside with me, just step outside. We'll both be free. Please don't - " Whatever the Doctor was going to say was lost to history, because destiny intervened.
Tegan stepped through the doorway of the console room in her pyjamas. "Doctor," she began. "I just figured it out. Oh."
Ruath froze the Doctor with a glance and swept at her like a hurricane. Tegan reacted a split second too late, turning to run just as Ruath's blow threw her across the room. The vampire spun and flew at her again, spitting blood.
Tegan staggered up, and found herself leaning against the remains of the hatstand. As Ruath rushed forward, she grabbed one of the remaining spars and swung it up.
It pierced Ruath straight through her left heart. She bellowed and tore the stake out of her chest. "Two hearts, ape! You need to stake both to kill me! Go on, try! Cut my head off; scald me with holy water, I'll only regenerate!" Tegan screamed as Ruath launched herself at her.
With an effort of will, the Doctor tore himself out of his paralysis and dived across the console room. He wasn't going to get there in time.
"Ruath." A quiet voice stopped the vampire in her tracks.
Nyssa was standing by the console. The door activation lever was in her hand. "Forgive me."
She pulled the lever.
The doors of the TARDIS opened into the vortex.
The air blasted out.
Nyssa grabbed the console, Tegan grabbed the Doctor and held onto the long spine of the hatstand, which had wedged between the console and the door.
But Ruath had nothing to hold onto.
She roared, and fixed her feet to the floor, an expression of intense concentration on her face. "I will ... not ... give up. I ... will ..."
The Doctor let go of Tegan's hand and launched himself at the console. He managed to grab a handhold and reached out for Ruath's hand.
&nb
sp; "Take my hand!" he shouted. "Don't try to - "
A gleam blazed into Ruath's eyes. "Doctor. Theta. I'll take you with me!" She jumped for the Doctor's throat.
And shot back out of the doors.
She spiralled away into the butterfly corridor of the vortex, screaming: "The winner shall lose and the loser - " And she vanished into the distance.
"Nyssa, close the doors!" The Doctor reached out and forced Nyssa's white-knuckled hand upwards, pulling the lever with it.
Slowly the doors swung closed. The rush of air abated. A red light on the console blinked on and off, showing that emergency oxygen supplies were being pumped into the TARDIS, now that the threat was over.
The Doctor gently led Nyssa away from the console.
"I couldn't let her do it," she said. "I had to stop her."
"Yes ..." The Doctor sadly put a hand on her shoulder. "Yes, I think that perhaps you did."
EPILOGUE
"It was all a trick!" bellowed the Great Vampire, as he fell out of space and time. He was very angry with Rassilon, because he thought that they had become friends. But Rassilon had fooled him, because the Great Vampire was very self-important, and it is not hard to fool those who are self-important.
"Omega and The Other both laughed to see the expression on the Great Vampire's face as he fell. They knew that Gallifrey would live in sunlight forever. So Omega made a new sun, which he put in a system that already had one. The planets of that system would now only ever have very short nights, and no vampire could ever live there for long.
"The Minyans and the other peoples of the universe thanked Rassilon and his friends for freeing them from the vampires with their great Bow-ships. They had no need to ever fear the fall of night again.
"And that is the story of how Rassilon slayed the Great Vampire, and let us all sleep safely in our beds at night." Romana closed the book with the Great Seal of Rassilon on the cover and smiled at the children that were sitting around her chair in a rapt circle. "Which is what all of you Time Toddlers should be doing now."
Nurses led the little Gallifreyans away, oblivious to their protests. Some of them stopped to thank Romana or ask questions about Rassilon, and she replied to them all.
As the last one vanished out of the door of her apartments, a familiar head poked around it. "You might be tired after all that," gruffed Castellan Spandrell, "but I think there's something you ought to see."
They walked through the corridors of the Capitol, Spandrell refusing to discuss the matter any further. In the days since her communication with the Doctor, Romana had immersed herself in study and recreation, delaying even Flavia's persistent enquiries about joining the High Council. It didn't take Spandrel's detective instincts to tell that she was worried about the Doctor.
He led her to a port in the Travel Capsule Holding Area. In it stood Ruath's TARDIS, a plain white capsule, except for one thing. On its door were embossed the words: All well. Superb as always.
Spandrell fished in the pocket of his robes. "We found this inside also." He handed Romana a cricket ball.
She grabbed it with a girlish little smile. "I'll treasure it!"
"So, now that your mind has been put at rest, have you considered the Lady President's offer?" They began to stroll back towards the new Presidential Suite.
"I'm not certain. You know, last time I obeyed a Presidential Directive, I found myself in serious trouble."
Spandrell shrugged. "It's the way things get done here. Thank Rassilon."
As they walked through the corridors of the residential block, the two Time Lords passed a pair of old men who were sat at a table, apparently considering some serious problem.
One was bearded, and his hand rested on a walking stick, its head in the shape of an owl. He was smiling.
The other was scowling, his hand to his chin. He was staring at the black shape of a wooden raven on the table before him.
Romana and Spandrell hardly spared them a glance as they walked by, deep in conversation.
"Yarven ..." The scowling man looked up hopefully, as if making a move in some game.
"Agonal," the bearded man smiled back.
"A message!" The man in black slapped a cylinder of parchment down onto the table.
"A ring!" the bearded man chuckled, slipping a silver band onto his finger.
The dark figure thumped the table. "Hmmph! I shall have to try something else!"
A moment later, Secretary Pogarel, on some urgent errand or other, rushed down the corridor, and he idly glanced at the alcove where the table was. But if there had ever been two figures sitting there, they were long gone now. Pogarel shivered, as one might at some passing breeze. Then he shook his head and moved on.
"You know, Merv," the Doctor grinned, shielding his eyes from the Tasmanian sunshine, "I'm surprised that the tournament's overrun so much."
Merv twitched his moustache. "Bad light." He got up from his seat and wandered back inside the pavilion to get another tinny.
Tegan and Nyssa strode up to the Doctor and threw themselves into deck-chairs on either side of him. "How are you?" asked Tegan.
"Absolutely relaxed." The Doctor pulled the brim of his hat over his eyes and opened his mouth in a yawn.
Nyssa jumped forward and peered into the chasm.
The Doctor pulled his hat up a notch and opened one eye. "They're quite the right length, I assure you. I don't think I'd be lying here with my sleeves rolled up if they weren't."
"So your girlfriend's dead?" Tegan asked.
"Probably. The vortex is quite hostile. But to free me of the curse, all she had to do was land in a time after the destruction of Yarven. And she is not my girlfriend."
"How bad do you think the damage was... in Britain and all that?"
"Not as bad as it could have been. Besides, perhaps the crisis will have had positive effects. People are always drawn together by adversity."
"I have a feeling that we're not going to find out how you knew about that ring that Ruath was wearing," Nyssa opined.
"And you'd be absolutely right, Nyssa. It's not a good idea to boast about bending the laws of time. Things tend to fall on one's head."
"Things like apples," Tegan smiled.
"I beg your parglomp - " His companion had slipped a Granny Smith into his mouth. He took hold of it and took a bite, unperturbed.
"While you're like that, I might ask how come it took you so long to figure out whether you were going to let me get bitten or not?" Tegan continued, fanning herself with Nyssa's volume of Primo Levi. In the last few days she'd finished reading it, and now she was thinking about starting a Jackie Collins or something. Something meaningless and fun.
The Doctor munched thoughtfully for a while. "I was considering the chances of Ruath being destroyed or returning to her natural condition," he finally replied. "And it seemed to me that there wasn't much chance of that happening so - I "
"So you took the risk instead of Tegan!" Nyssa smiled, looking between her two friends.
"Yeah," Tegan muttered, looking aside. "I'm grateful."
"Well, actually," the Doctor began, "my decision was based on who would make the better vampire. If one of us was going to be fluttering about and floating under doors ..."
"Oh, thanks. I'd have been really bad at it, would I?"
"I did have visions of you still trying to do your make-up in a mirror, yes."
Tegan flopped back into her deck-chair, losing all posture. "How are your side doing in this stupid game, anyway?" she asked, gazing out at the white-garbed figures on the cricket pitch.
"Oh, we were knocked out yesterday." The Doctor finished his apple.
"So we've got no reason to stay?" Nyssa piped up.
"No reason? There's still the interest of the game, not to mention a small wager I have with Merv concerning -" There came a grand shout from the pitch. The spectators rose in applause.
The Doctor's face fell. "No. No reason at all." He counted out a small pile of coins onto his dec
k-chair. "I wonder if he'll appreciate Rutan Pobulas?"
Tegan found herself disarmed by him yet again. "Of course he will," she said. "Do the Rutans drink Fosters?"
They wandered back to the TARDIS as the light started to fade. The grass was looking a little bleached, compared to Tasmania's usual verdant green, but it would recover in time.
Nyssa turned to look back at the setting sun. "Out of all of the vampires," she said, "there were two who looked after me. I think they meant it when they said they wouldn't let anybody hurt me."
"Well, if you didn't see them under the twin suns, they might have got away." The Doctor laid a hand on her shoulder. "There's always good in everybody you know, if you only know where to look."
"Here endeth the first lesson," muttered Tegan. She let go of the Doctor's arm and dropped his hat back onto his head. "Ah well, it was good to see Aussie again. Where are we going next?"
"A destination," the Doctor frowned, "picked quite at random." He brightened again. "But I think I'll narrow it down to somewhere sunny."
He led his companions into the TARDIS and closed the door. A moment later there came a grinding of machinery, and the light on top of the police box began to flash. With a strange wheezing, groaning sound, the TARDIS faded away from the cricket fields.
The Doctor and his friends were on their way to another adventure.
Somewhere in the outer solar system, a tiny craft flashed through space.
It was a probe called Voyager Two, sent spinning off from Earth to take photographs of other planets. Once it left the sun's family of worlds, it would head off into space, encountering other star systems, perhaps, in the centuries to follow.
It was not meant to carry a crew. But it did.
They'd just managed to catch up with it, at a speed they could never sustain. Jake had grabbed a solar panel and pulled Madelaine on board.
They secured the flasks of vampire DNA to the main body of the craft. Then they found a flat surface and coated it with a thin layer of soil from Earth.
