Doctor Who - The Silent Stars Go By

by Dan Abnett

  'I'm going to reach into my pocket and take something out, all right?' the Doctor told Jack.

  Jack Duggat hesitated. The Doctor began to slide a hand into his tweed jacket.

  'Careful!' Amy whispered.

  'Tell him that,' replied the Doctor. He produced the travel pass wallet that contained his psychic paper, and showed it to Jack Duggat. 'I think that clears things up,'

  he said.

  'It says he's from Seeside,' Jack Duggat announced, studying the wallet. 'It says he's come to wish us well for the season, as is traditional, and extend the hand of friendship from Seeside Plantnation. It also says he is here to offer expertise and assistance.'

  Bill Groan rose to his feet.

  'On behalf of the Beside Plantnation, I welcome you then as friends at this time of festival,' he said. 'I'm sorry we mistook you. These are troubled times.'

  'I can tell,' said the Doctor.

  'Wait,' said Jack Duggat. 'There is one thing.'

  'What's that, Jack?' asked Bill Groan.

  'You know it yourself, Elect,' said Jack. 'I haven't got my letters. I can't read. So how come I'm reading this?' He held the wallet out. No one seemed to want to touch it.

  'Obviously, I can explain that,' the Doctor began.

  Old Winnowner got up and came down to the front.

  She took the wallet from Jack Duggat's massive hand and looked at it.

  'It is a letter,' she said. 'Guide help me, just like Jack said. A letter from the Nurse Elect of Seeside. It looks... genuine.'

  'How could I read it?' asked Jack, sounding distressed.

  Old Winnowner looked at Bill Groan in horror.

  'Unguidely!' she breathed.

  'I'm sure—' Bill began.

  'It's unguidely, Elect!' Winnowner said. 'It's conjury!

  You know what Guide teaches us about conjury!'

  'It's a Cat A wrong,' said Chaunce Plowrite.

  'I know it is,' said Bill Groan heavily. 'Jack, take them to the compter and lock them in while we work out what to do.'

  'It's... it's just paper,' said the Doctor, looking rather wrong-footed. 'It's just an innocent trick—' 'Conjury tricks,' said Old Winnowner. 'See, he admits it.'

  The men began to jostle Amy and the Doctor away.

  Amy glared meaningfully at him.

  'I can't take you anywhere,' she said.

  The compter was a cell under the assembly hall. Earth-cut steps led down into a cold, artificial cave lit by a couple of solamps. A firebucket had been stoked. The cell had a cage wall with a sliding door. The bars were made of dull, bluish metal. The interior of the cell was a sawdust floor furnished with a bench and a soil-pot.

  Jack Duggat locked them in and went back up the steps jangling the keys.

  Amy sat down on the bench.

  'Great,' she said.

  The Doctor grinned at her. He flipped out his sonic screwdriver.

  'A lock,' he said. 'I can do locks. They're easy-peasy.

  Easier than trying to bluff a hall full of frightened people.'

  'Why are they frightened?' asked Amy.

  'Because we're strange,' he said. 'And anyway, wouldn't you be if you'd never seen a proper winter before?'

  Amy shrugged.

  'OK, open the lock,' she invited. 'Then what? We've got to get past all those blokes with pitchforks. If we're lucky, maybe they'll light torches and form a mob to chase us back to our castle.'

  'You're upset,' said the Doctor. 'I can see that.'

  'Top marks to you,' she replied. 'I'm worried about Rory. Hell be worried about me. About us. He could be walking into anything.'

  Bel stared fiercely at the Nurse Elect of Beside. 'Just like that, Bill Groan? Just like that? You lock them up?

  You don't even ask the questions you should ask?'

  'He will, Arabel,' said old Winnowner.

  'I will,' Bill Groan agreed. He was thinking hard and studying the stranger's wallet. Part of him was worried that its unguideliness might rub off and contaminate him, but it was too intriguing to set aside. The letter contained in the wallet was exactly the sort of letter that he would have issued as Nurse Elect of Beside. It bore Guide's stamp, and the crest of the Hereafter plantnations. It was the very form of words he would compose. It even looked like his handwriting.

  'Perhaps it is real. Perhaps they are who they say they are,' said Bel.

  'It's not real,' said Bill Groan.

  'Then they could have took it!' snapped Bel. Took it from some poor Seesider who was coming here with good intentions. Took it, and left him for dead in a ditch—'

  'It's not real!' Bill snapped back. 'Jack could read it, remember?'

  'So stop looking at it, and go and — '

  'Arabel Flurrish!' Bill Groan exclaimed. 'Take yourself back to your seat!'

  'Go ask them where my sister is!' Bel shouted.

  'I know you're worried, Arabel, but you show some common courtesy,' said Bill Groan. He looked back at the wallet and his voice grew smaller. 'The stars, and the cold, and now this,' he said. 'Guide help me, I don't know what to do. Nothing like this has ever happened to us. I don't even know how to start to think about it.'

  'It's conjury,' said Winnowner softly. 'It's a blight of conjury that's brought the harsh winter upon us, and those two strangers are the cause. It's their doing.'

  'I don't believe in conjury,' said Bill.

  'It's their work,' said Winnowner. 'A blight of conjury.'

  'No,' said Bill, shaking his head.

  'Did you see her hair?' asked Chaunce. 'I never seen hair like that before.'

  'The colour of blood,' said Jack Duggat.

  'Not blood,' murmured Samewell Crook.

  Bill Groan looked at Old Winnowner. Her brow was furrowed with concern like an acre after the plough, but her thin smile was trying to reassure him.

  'What if it is conjury?' he asked. 'What if it is an unguidely thing?'

  'Then Guide will show us what to do,' the old woman said. 'Chapter and verse, well find the passage that applies to our situation, and follow Guide's words, and be delivered. Like we always are with all things.'

  Bill didn't look convinced. He turned the wallet over in his hand, thoughtfully.

  'But Jack, who I've known since we were boys, he could read the words of this when he can't read a word otherwise,' he said. 'That's something that should not happen. It should not be possible, not under Guide's laws. And if it's something to which Guide's laws do not apply, how do we fight that?'

  Bel Flurrish held out her hand.

  'Can I see it, please, Elect?' she asked.

  Bill Groan hesitated. Old Winnowner looked particularly dubious. After a moment, he handed the wallet to Bel.

  She looked at its outside first, turning it around and around before opening it.

  'Oh,' she said.

  'What?' asked Bill.

  Bel was staring at the open wallet. Words didn't seem to want to form.

  'It's — ' she began.

  'It's highly convincing, isn't it?' asked Bill Groan.

  Bel closed the wallet and handed it back to the Nurse Elect. 'Yes, it is,' she said. 'Please, Elect. Please go down and ask them about my sister. The day is passing and night is coming again.'

  'I will, Bel, as soon as I have discussed what best to do.'

  'Don't delay, Elect!' Bel said in despair.

  'I will consult the council,' Bill replied. 'An hour, no more. Just so I know what to do in the face of further conjury. Then I will get some answers out of them.'

  Bill Groan asked the council to take their seats again, and they quickly fell to talking.

  Bel Flurrish watched for a while, fidgeting and anxious. When she could bear it no more, she got up.

  Everyone was too busy discussing the issue to notice her slip out of the back of the assembly.

  Rory ran.

  He was running about as fast as he'd ever run in his life. He was certainly running as fast as he had ever run in heavy snow. More than once, the
soft depth of it took his feet out from under him, or stole away his balance, and he went sprawling.

  Each time, he got up and started running again.

  He had no idea where he was running to. He had no idea which way the TARDIS was any more. All he knew for certain was which direction he was running from.

  There had been something quite dreadful about the figures he had seen, something that had shaken him.

  There had been four or perhaps five figures, and they'd simply been walking in his direction. The figures had been green, as though they were wearing suits or uniforms. They hadn't been doing anything sinister or threatening. They hadn't shouted at him, or shot at him.

  Nevertheless, there had been something disturbing about the way they were advancing: slow, steady, relentless, utterly untroubled by the snow. He'd never seen anything as simple as walking look scary before, and that was saying something, because he'd seen Cybermen march. Cybermen moved with chilling, machined discipline. The way they walked matched the way they thought, and that was the terrifying part about them: the clinical precision.

  The figures Rory had just seen had been lumbering.

  They had displayed a relentlessness born not out of mechanical rhythm, but brutal, unwavering, physical determination.

  They'd been big people, whoever they were.

  Stupidly big. For a second, Rory wondered if they were wearing extensive and heavyweight coldweather gear. He thought he caught a flash of red from goggles or a visor. But even cold-weather gear wouldn't have explained their size. They were towering, bulky humanoids, broad-bodied and slope-shouldered. They reminded him unpleasantly of the proper bruisers that were taken into A&E on a Saturday night, veterans of fights in pub car parks and brawls with doormen.

  Those blokes weren't athletically large: no broad shoulders and round biceps, like the Hollywood idea of a super hero. They were always real world big: thick through the chest and waist, with forearms like hams, and wrists as wide as their fists. Their flesh was dense.

  They had a scary, unglamorous strength, a genuine power, bred not from a gym and a personal trainer, but from graft and life. Those were the ones you were wary around when you were on shift, the sullen ones who loomed, and looked at you from under drink-lowered eyelids, the ones who could suddenly turn and cripple you with a punch.

  Rory knew, simply knew as a certainty, that the men he had seen were to be avoided. His first thought of hiding had been dashed. The plodding figures were too close. If they hadn't seen him already, they would be about to, and he had no desire to cower behind a tree while they caught up with him. He'd started to run instead.

  Besides, if there were things like that, giant things like that, blundering around in the woods, Rory would prefer they were chasing him rather than bearing down on Amy and the Doctor.

  He could draw them off, perhaps, and then circle back to look for his friends... And then get the hell out of there.

  Chapter

  4

  Though the Frost Was Cruel

  'Someone's coming!' hissed Amy.

  The Doctor's sonic screwdriver had been poised over the cage door's lock. He quickly put it behind his back.

  Bel Flurrish came down the shadowy steps into the lamplight. She stared at them through the bars. 'Where is my sister?' she asked.

  'We don't know,' the Doctor assured her gently.

  'You do know,' said Bel, approaching the bars. Her expression was fierce.

  'We don't!' Amy insisted. 'How's about you let us out of this stupid cage?'

  'I know you know,' said Bel. 'How else would you have a picture of her?'

  'A picture?' asked Amy, baffled.

  'In that wallet!' Bel exclaimed. 'That wallet full of conjury! I saw it!'

  Amy looked at the Doctor.

  'Psychic paper,' murmured the Doctor. He turned to face Amy. 'Awkward. One of the drawbacks. It keys into the thing you most want to see, the thing you'll find most compelling or convincing. Sometimes a strong emotion can imprint, with rather unfortunate consequences.'

  'She saw her sister because she's worried about her?'

  asked Amy.

  'It's all she can think of,' the Doctor replied. 'Plus, she suspects us of being involved somehow because we're strangers, so that boosted the subliminal response. Plus—'

  'There's another plus?'

  'Yes,' said the Doctor. 'I think there's a general level of tension here that's heightening emotional resonance.'

  Bel was watching their rapid conversation with increasing amazement.

  'You know she's standing right there and she can hear every word we're saying, don't you?' Amy asked the Doctor.

  'Yes, I had noticed.'

  'And you're aware her general level of freak-out is going to sky-rocket if we keep talking like this?'

  'Indeed I am,' said the Doctor.

  He turned back to face Bel through the bars of the cage.

  He smiled.

  'Listen,' he said. 'Arabel - it is Arabel? - Arabel, we really want to help you. We really do. We didn't harm your sister or take her away. We didn't even see her.

  But we'd like to help you find her. What's your sister's name, Arabel?'

  'Why would I tell you that?' asked Bel.

  'So that we can help you?'

  'And why would you help me?'

  'To be honest,' said Amy, 'we're in a bit of a fix here.

  If we can do something to help you, maybe we can prove to your...' She hesitated, then gestured up the stairs behind Bel.'... to your community that we're nothing to be afraid of.'

  'Indeed,' said the Doctor. 'Let nothing you dismay.

  We come in peace. Besides, no one deserves to be lost in weather like this.'

  'No, they don't,' agreed Amy, shooting the Doctor a significant look.

  'So what's her name?' asked the Doctor.

  'Vesta,' said Bel cautiously. 'Harvesta Flurrish.'

  'And when did you last see her?'

  'Last night, before bed. She was gone this morning.'

  'Do you know where she might have gone?' asked the Doctor.

  Bel shook her head. 'But she took her boots and her coat.'

  The Doctor glanced at Amy, and then looked back at Bel. 'Arabel,' he said, 'it's not supposed to be this cold, is it?'

  'Is it not cold where you come from?' Bel asked.

  'Not this cold,' said the Doctor. 'It's getting colder each winter, isn't it? Every year, a little worse. How many years has it been going on?'

  'Three or four.'

  'And the reverse is supposed to be happening, isn't it?'

  'Of course,' said Bel. 'That is the goal of all Morphan work. As you should know.'

  'I was just thinking aloud,' said the Doctor.

  'Guide tells us,' said Bel, 'that patterns may worsen in the short term while the greater changes take effect.

  So the Elect teaches.'

  'That's true,' said the Doctor. 'Sometimes. With major projects, that's certainly true, sometimes. You're dealing with continental weather systems. Global climate. But I'm not sure. That's why you haven't done anything drastic, isn't it? You've been telling yourself it's just a symptom of short-term climate change.'

  'What's this all about, Doctor?' Amy asked. 'Why are you talking about weather?'

  'Look at her clothes,' said the Doctor. 'Her everyday clothes are well made but worn from long use. Her overcoats, and shawls, her boots... they're all new. The people here are not used to winters this cold.' He looked back at Bel. 'Will you let us out, Arabel?'

  Bel glanced nervously at the stairs. 'I should not. It is against the word of the Elect.'

  'If you let us out, we will help you,' said the Doctor.

  Bel wavered.

  'But I do not have the key!' she declared.

  'Arabel, tell me why people are so worried about conjury?' asked the Doctor.

  'It's a Cat A crime,' said Bel. 'We are taught we may only do what Guide tells us to do. If it is unguidely, then it is forbidden.'


  'Arabel,' said the Doctor calmly, 'just for a moment, you're going to have to accept that Guide has told me how to do things that may not have been mentioned to other people.'

  Bel Flurrish blinked and then narrowed her eyes.

  'What do you mean?'

  The Doctor took the sonic screwdriver from behind his back. He adjusted it, ratcheted open the pincers, and aimed it at the cage door's lock. It glowed as it warbled softly. The lock sprang with a click.

  The Doctor opened the cage door.

  Bel stared at him.

  'Let's go and find your sister,' he said.

  They slipped up the stairs of the compter, the Doctor leading the way. The sound of voices drifted from the assembly hall.

  'They will be talking for hours,' Bel whispered.

  One of Duggat's men was watching the doorway, leaning on the handle of the shovel he'd been carrying as a weapon. He was watching the council debate through the half-open door. A strong, cold draft was coming down the side corridor. Arabel indicated that direction with a tilt of her head.

  Hugging the chilly stone of the wall, they crept past the guard, and hurried down the corridor to the rear gate. Bel struggled a little with the heavy bolt. The Doctor helped her. Amy kept glancing over her shoulder. She was certain the guard was going to hear the screech of the bolt withdrawing.

  The Doctor managed to pull it silently. He ran his finger along the bolt.

  'The same metal as the nails,' he whispered.

  Amy glared at him.

  He gauged her reaction. 'No? Not the time for that?'

  he asked, still whispering.

  She shook her head.

  They scuttled outside, into a little snowy yard behind the assembly. Amy carefully latched the door as quietly as she could.

  Bel stepped up to the Doctor and put her hand flat against his chest, pushing him firmly against the yard wall.

  'I am only doing this to help my sister,' she said. 'I will not have her die too.'

  'Of course,' said the Doctor.

  'If you play me for a fool...'

  'I won't, Arabel. I promise.'

  'This is our house,' said Bel, closing the door behind them. No lamps had been lit, and no heat stoked up either. Bel had left the Flurrish house early in her search for Vesta. The house ached with cold. Daylight leaked in through the snow-dusted windows.