by Doctor Who
The Doctor paused. ‘A long time ago, on Earth, a young man was arrested and sentenced to death for treason by the Tsar. Dressed in a white gown and blindfolded, he was led to the square for a public execution. Bound to a post, the firing squad prepared to fire. “Ready
– aim. . . ” Rifles were cocked, fingers rested on triggers – and only at the last possible moment did a rider come with a message of reprieve.’
What is your point?
‘The young man felt he had a second chance at life. He became one of the greatest writers the planet ever produced. His novels are dark, they grapple with evil – but they are also full of unwarranted mercy.
In one a character says, “I do not know the answer to the problem of evil – but I do know love.”’
Love?
‘These people deserve to be shown love and compassion. They are relying on your mercy,’ continued the Doctor.
‘Please,’ said Jude, sobbing. ‘I don’t want to die!’
But I am tired. So tired. . .
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‘I can pilot this ship to a brighter part of the universe,’ said the Doctor. ‘Well away from prying eyes, but close enough to stars for the Castor to recharge itself.’
But I can’t keep the darkness quiet any longer. The things I have seen. . .
There was an agonised tone in the creature’s voice; Martha noticed that the shadowy angel was now as tall and as wide as the room itself and it was almost within touching distance of the Doctor and Jude.
‘Ah,’ said the Dazai, weighing up the angel slowly. ‘I wonder if I may be able to help with that. . . ’
And with that she stepped forward, bravely and quite deliberately.
With a final smile, and her frail arms outstretched, she walked straight into the shadow.
She flowed into the angel, and the angel flowed into her; an impossible figure and a prosaic one merging and overlapping like the meeting of wind and fog. The Dazai cried out in unendurable agony, her tiny body writhing and twisting in black shrouds and shadow.
Freed from the strange paralysis that had overcome her, Martha ran immediately to her – but the Doctor smoothly interposed himself. ‘It’s OK,’ he said. ‘Just leave her for a minute.’
‘But it’ll kill her!’
‘I’m not so sure,’ said the Doctor. ‘Look!’
The Dazai had fallen onto her back now, staring up at the vaulted ceiling with sightless eyes. Her arms and legs were shaking, her thin lips pulled tight in wordless agony – Martha couldn’t even begin to imagine the tormented images rushing through her mind.
Then, brushing aside the Doctor’s offered arm, the Dazai got to her feet. The shadow creature seemed to have entirely vanished – or been absorbed within her tiny frame. Though unsteady, and still shaking from her experiences, there was a strange, detached look on the Dazai’s face – she seemed almost younger, the worst of her wrinkles smoothed away, her eyes burning brightly. But there was obvious pain in her eyes, a sorrow so deep and so acute that Martha had to glance away.
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It was like looking into the Doctor’s eyes when he alluded to his home and his people.
‘Oh. . . ’ The Dazai shook her head slowly, as if in disbelief. ‘Oh,’
she whispered again, a long, drawn-out sigh as silent tears began to course down her cheeks.
The effect on the creature in the centre of the room – and the voice that Martha and the others heard – was even more remarkable.
It’s all. . . gone. I am free of it all!
‘That’s right,’ said the Doctor, a soothing note in his voice. ‘You can just concentrate on sustaining your world – on enjoying everything that you have created!’
I no longer feel. . . guilt. It is not my fault any more!
‘It never was,’ said the Doctor quietly. He placed a reassuring arm around Jude. ‘Just you concentrate on keeping the bubble world ticking over. At least until you get to a new star system. People like my friend Jude here are depending on you!’
I think I may be able to manage more than that.
Suddenly the room flickered, the wires and artificial lighting replaced with the rough stone cave on the island. The two regions became one, just as they had when Martha and the Doctor had first attempted to return to the Castor from the forest.
Petr and Saul stood to one side of the great stone column, eyes and mouths wide, understanding nothing. ‘Doctor?’ said Petr, a note of panic in his voice. ‘Where are we?’
The suspended creature pulsed brightly.
With less to think about, less to control. . . I should be able to. . .
Once more the stone column split open, a door sliding back to reveal a square of impossible brightness. Small, dark figures moved impatiently in the light, stepping one by one out onto the floor of the chamber.
The missing children.
Within moments, the cave was full of the sounds of laughter and quick feet and boundless delight. Petr, dropping his swords to the floor, threw himself across the room, wrapping one boy in his arms and weeping uncontrollably.
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‘Thorn! Thorn!’ Petr was sobbing, absolutely unashamed and innocent, like a baby.
The boy returned the embrace. ‘Dad!’ He hugged Petr tight, as if desperate for these physical sensations after a period of dreaming limbo. ‘What happened to us?’
‘I don’t know,’ said Petro ‘What matters is that you are back!’
Martha prodded Jude gently, for the girl was still looking around, baffled by the two overlapping realities and the sudden appearance of the lost children. ‘I think your dad wants to see you,’ said Martha with a grin.
Jude ran across the room, her arms wide, as if finally acknowledging that making sense of it all would have to wait. She hurled herself into Saul’s embrace; he winced and stumbled slightly, but said nothing, lost in the joy of reunion.
Martha smiled. She could sense the creature’s delight – freed of the shackles of other people’s evil, and revelling in the confused babble of voices and stories, the final prisoner of the research station Castor was doing what the Doctor had ordered – enjoying the world that it had created.
‘You gave me such a fright!’ Saul was saying, still clinging tightly to his daughter. ‘Promise me you’ll never wander off like that again!’
‘Don’t make me promise something you know I can’t keep!’ Jude was giggling, just a normal child teasing her father. ‘But, if it makes you feel better. . . I’ll not go wandering – for the next couple of weeks, anyway!’
Petr stood tall, his face smudged with tears and dirt. ‘Listen to me, everyone!’ he said loudly. The children stopped jumping and shouting, looking instead towards their leader in hushed deference.
‘We should return to the village – there are lots of people who want to see you again!’
‘And how are you going to cross the lake?’ asked Martha, ever the pragmatist.
‘The Dazai has her methods,’ said Petr, ‘and so do I.’
It was only then, as the children began to file out of the cave, that Martha caught the creature’s voice in her own mind.
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Trust me, Petr. Lead your people back to the village!
Martha ran to the cave’s entrance and looked out. The sky was full of stars now, not an empty void; light fell down on a lake that was perfectly calm, and a village liberated from fog. As if in recognition of all that had happened, the lanterns that had filled the village hall were now spreading across the bridges and pathways and lanes, bathing houses and workplaces with light and warmth.
Between the island and the shore near the village there now stretched a spur of rock. Water still flowed down its sides, as if it had only this moment emerged from the lake like a long, sinuous creature coming up for air.
For all Martha knew, that’s exactly what the creature had called into existence. This world belonged to the alien creature; it could, she supposed, do exactly what it liked with it.
Martha
stood for a moment, watching the excited children scamper across the land bridge. They were already swapping stories of heroes and dark angels. She hoped the causeway would remain a permanent feature of Jude’s world – she could imagine generations of people coming here and creating their own legends about today’s events.
And, perhaps, Jude would tell her own children of a traveller from beyond the stars, of seeing the ‘real world’ that existed beyond and behind the trees and houses and lake, of battling dark angels and pleading for her life before a creature with godlike powers. And her kids wouldn’t believe a word of it, and rightly so. It would become a tall tale, alluded to and mocked, and, over the centuries, a myth, fit only for arguments and dreams.
Petr and Saul passed by, about to start their journey over the causeway. Jude and Thorn played in front of them, just kids happy to be alive – and glad to be going home. Saul was walking unaided now, but Martha could sense that the silent distance between the brothers was less than it had been. Their eyes, as both men made a nodding motion towards her, seemed to say as much: problems would be faced, not ignored. It might not be easy or pleasant, but compared to what they had both faced together, it would be the simplest thing in the world.
She also saw in their eyes a queried goodbye, an invitation to follow 164
them both back to the village, or to drift away as she saw fit.
Martha grinned – if she knew the Doctor, it would be the latter.
She glanced back into the cave. The Doctor and the Dazai were on their own now, talking quietly by the stone pillar that was, once more, a plain and featureless outcrop of rock. To their side, the suspended creature pulsed gently, its own environment of straight lines and tubes fading in and out of sight.
Martha came over to stand at the Doctor’s side. ‘What will you do now?’ the Doctor was asking quietly.
‘The things I have seen. . . ’ The Dazai’s voice was even more brittle than usual, as if the poor woman had been forced to run a marathon.
‘The emotions that are flowing through me. . . ’ Martha noticed that the Dazai’s hands were claws, permanently tensed like sharpened bones covered with paper-thin flesh. ‘I think I can control them, make sense of it all. . . But I must leave the village. I must retreat into the forests and the mountains. There I can harm no one, influence no one
– I can simply battle with my demons.’
‘You’re incredibly brave,’ said Martha suddenly.
The Dazai shrugged. ‘Perhaps I’m just doing what is expected of me. Legend has it that each Dazai must retreat from the village, and battle with their own monsters, before they can be considered truly worthy of the title.’
‘You’ll return,’ said the Doctor, though there was a trace of uncertainty in his voice. ‘Eventually.’
‘Perhaps,’ the Dazai responded. ‘Perhaps, one day, I will go back.
But for the moment. . . ’ And she looked out, not at the clustered buildings, but at the surrounding mountains and forests. The sun was just starting to rise, illuminating treetops and the flags and banners of the village.
‘Good luck,’ said the Doctor.
The Dazai twisted her face into a smile. ‘I don’t need luck,’ she said, a little of her old belligerence returning, and then she moved away.
Martha glanced at the creature, still suspended in it awful cocoon of technology, but seemingly quiet and content now. She hoped that, free of other people’s evil, it would find some sort of peace while watching 165
over its created world.
When she looked back, the Dazai had gone, taking the last traces of the dark angel with her. The cave, with its view of the land bridge and the blue-green lake and its central pillar of rock, came into focus one last time – and then disappeared from view.
Martha and the Doctor were back with the extra-dimensional creature on the Castor, and the TARDIS could only be a few corridors away.
The Doctor walked over to the prisoner, the god of the unreal world, and patted its flank. ‘Thank you,’ he said simply. And then, after a pause, ‘You really are amazing!’
He turned to Martha.
‘You’re not so bad yourself, you know. If you hadn’t gone back and tried to rescue Saul. . . ’
His eyes were distant, as if he – uniquely – could see through the walls of the Castor. Perhaps, just for a moment, he saw a dark forest and an island at the heart of a mysterious lake – and a village of flags and bridges, celebrating the return of its children.
‘How did you rescue Saul from the monster?’ he asked suddenly.
‘Ah,’ said Martha modestly. ‘I did have a little help.’
‘Well, you can tell me later,’ said the Doctor. ‘I love a good story –heroes and monsters, that sort of thing.’ He turned back to the creature. ‘Like I said – give me a minute and we’ll get you somewhere warm,’ he said. ‘And then you can drift again, far away from humans and all the evil things they do.’ He glanced at Martha. ‘Present company excepted, of course.’
‘Then back to the TARDIS?’ said Martha.
The Doctor nodded. ‘Yes. Back to the TARDIS.’ He turned to the doorway. ‘I can access the Castor’s navigation systems from just down here. . . ’
Martha followed him out of the angular chamber. Their feet rang out on the metal walkway as they strolled away.
‘I don’t quite understand why the ship’s scanners didn’t pick up that creature,’ said Martha as they walked. ‘It made a stab at tracking that shadow thing.’
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‘Well,’ said the Doctor, ‘that big splurge of data. . . Maybe it wasn’t just the bubble world it was detecting – but the creature as well. It’s a very fine line, between creator and creation.’
‘And what will happen if the Castor drifts into darkness again?’
queried Martha.
The Doctor smiled. ‘Let’s hope I do as good a job next time,’ said the Doctor. ‘Let’s hope I have someone with me as. . . brave as you were.’
‘What do you mean, “next time”?’
‘Oh, just something the Dazai said. She sort of implied that this had happened before. That the biggest lessons in life we need to learn again and again.’
‘And what lesson do we learn from all this? Not to go exploring when you find yourself in a forest in deep space?’
‘Oh, yeah, that,’ said the Doctor with a grin. ‘And. . . ’ He risked a final glance over his shoulder. ‘To be capable of love, nine times out of ten. . . Someone needs to love us first.’
capitals–>
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Acknowledgements
Thanks to Russell T Davies and Justin Richards, for allowing me to write this footnote to the glory that is New Who, to my wife and family
– Helen, Emily and Charlotte – for time, space and macadamia nuts, and to Terry Barker, Mike Chappell, Paul Cornell, Simon Forward, Nev Fountain, Matthew Graham, Dominic Lord at Jill Foster Ltd, Moray Laing, Mike Maddox, Steven Moffat, John McLaughlin and Charlotte Bruton at Campbell Thomson & McLaughlin, Helen Raynor, Gareth Roberts, Gary Russell, Rob Shearman, James Sinden, Keith Topping, Steve Tribe, and all the Unusual Suspects, for lots of other things.
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Document Outline
Front Cover
Contents
Prologue
One
Two
Three
Four
Five
Six
Seven
Eight
Nine
Ten
Eleven
Twelve
Thirteen
Fourteen
Fifteen
Acknowledgements
Back Cover
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