by Doctor Who
A new voice had joined the conversation. Hespell realised that Kendle had appeared in the doorway without making a sound – his marine training in action again. Kendle glared at the Doctor, his face revealing nothing. Hespell bit his lip in anticipation: this was a confrontation that looked as if it might be very entertaining.
‘Hello,’ said the Doctor brightly. ‘And who are you?’
Rose looked around at the locals, who had her surrounded on all sides.
They seemed to be lapping up everything the old man was saying.
Were they really thinking of sacrificing her?
Before the shaman could make any further move towards that end, Rez stepped out of the crowd, holding his hands up.
‘Wait!’ he called out. ‘Just hold on a minute.’
Now everyone was looking at Rez.
He took a deep breath and then addressed the crowd. ‘Is this how Laylora wants us to treat our visitors? With suspicion and hatred and a violent death?’
51
As Rez spoke, he moved subtly to take up a position between Rose and the shaman. Again Rose could see a hint of the Doctor in her new friend – it was exactly the sort of thing he would have done.
Rez looked around at his adopted people, meeting as many pairs of eyes as he could. ‘When I came here, as a baby, you welcomed me and took me into your homes. Why is this arrival any different?’
There was an awkward silence and for a moment Rose wasn’t sure which way things were going to go. But then the moment broke and the mood of the crowd changed. With most of the men away, the women were in the majority and few of them had any great appetite for blood sacrifice.
Brother Hugan could sense it too. ‘I didn’t mean we should sacrifice the girl,’ he explained, hurriedly backtracking. ‘But we must appease Laylora in some way.’
‘Whatever you think we need to do, whatever ritual must be performed, I’ll help,’ Rez told him. ‘But killing Rose isn’t going to do anything for anyone.’
‘Rez is right,’ Mother Jaelette’s voice rang out. ‘Brother Hugan did not mean to frighten Rose, did you?’
The shaman shook his head. ‘Of course not.’ He looked Rose in the eye and added, ‘I’m sorry.’
Despite everything Rose felt some sympathy for the old man. A moment ago he had seemed so important and vital to the village and now he looked like a joke. ‘I will perform the Ritual of Understanding,’
Brother Hugan announced, with as much dignity as he could muster, and disappeared into his tent.
The crowd broke up, drifting off in various directions, leaving Rez and Rose standing alone.
‘Thanks,’ Rose said simply.
‘Any time,’ replied Rez, a little shyly. ‘Would you like something to eat?’
Now he mentioned food, Rose realised that she was very hungry.
She smiled broadly at him. ‘You know what, I think I would.’
∗ ∗ ∗
52
‘Who is he?’ Professor Shulough demanded.
Two hours had passed since Kendle had entered the temporary cell and she was impatient to hear the results. Kendle just shrugged, a bemused expression on his lined face.
‘I’ve interrogated hundreds of prisoners in my time and I’ve never come up against one like this,’ he explained.
The professor was surprised to hear such a defeated tone in her old friend’s voice. ‘You can’t get him to talk?’
‘Actually, I can’t get him to shut up!’
She frowned, wrong-footed. ‘I don’t understand.’
‘He just keeps blithering on. . . That man could talk for the Empire.
He just won’t stop,’ complained Kendle.
‘So has he told you who he is and what he wants here?’
‘I wish.’
Frustrated, the professor started to pace the corridor. ‘We have to know what he’s doing here.’
Kendle glanced back into the cabin where the man was still being held.
The professor came up alongside him. ‘Maybe I should have a go. . . ’
Rose had to smile. The more she travelled with the Doctor, the more unexpected life became. If someone had told her this morning that she’d end the day having dinner with a fit-looking lad a few years her junior – in a tent, no less – she’d have laughed in their face. For a start, camping was just so not her. Rose and some friends from school had tried it once, at a summer rock festival. It had been a laugh the first night, but two more days of having to get up and walk a kilometre through the mud in the middle of the night to use the loo had soon lost its appeal. That would have been bad enough, but then they’d had to deal with more rainfall in forty-eight hours than England had seen in the previous two months. After that experience Rose had sworn that she’d never spend a night ‘under canvas’ again.
And yet here she was. . . on a date with the original Mr Back-to-Nature. Rez had led her away from the Talking Stone to a small tent 53
that was situated a little way to the side of the larger tent belonging to Mother Jaelette.
‘Last year I was allowed to move into my own space,’ he had explained, opening the tent flap to allow her to enter.
Inside it was simply furnished with woven rugs and furs. Rose had half-expected him to go and fetch some food from his stepmother next door, but he surprised her by starting to prepare a meal himself.
She watched as he stirred the contents of a saucepan, which was suspended over the fire in front of his tent. The crackling flames threw interesting patterns across his chiselled features. Rose wondered what it must have been like to be brought up knowing that you were different from everyone else. Was he teased when he was younger, for not having the pointy ears or for having the extra finger? It must have been hard for him.
‘Do you know much about your. . . ’ Rose hesitated, unsure what the right word was. ‘About who you are and where you come from?’ she continued finally, changing direction.
‘My “real” parents,’ he replied, still stirring rhythmically, ‘that’s what you were going to say, wasn’t it?’
Blushing, Rose nodded.
‘I know a little. There were some things packed into the escape pod I landed in, some keepsakes: a weird cube thing. . . ’ He trailed off and concentrated on ladling the broth from the saucepan into two bowls.
‘I’m sorry,’ murmured Rose, as he passed her one of the bowls.
‘It’s OK, really,’ Rez assured her, coming to join her and sitting on the ground in the shade of the tent’s awning.
Although it was now dark, it was still pleasantly warm. Rose took a tentative sip of the thick soup. Exotic but alien vegetables swam in a thick, orange-coloured liquid. Rose hoped it tasted as good as it smelt. It did. In spades.
‘This is fantastic,’ she gushed.
Thank you,’ he said, smiling. ‘I don’t make it as well as Mother Jaelette but I try. . . ’
∗ ∗ ∗
54
The Doctor looked up as the cabin door opened again. This time it was a woman, another human, but she clearly wasn’t a soldier. There was an air of intelligence about her. The Doctor wondered if perhaps he might be able to get through to this one.
‘I’m Professor Petra Shulough. I’m in command of this mission,’ she announced by way of an opening gambit. ‘I’m sorry that you’ve been inconvenienced like this.’
The Doctor smiled disarmingly. ‘Oh, it’s no trouble,’ he began, ‘but I could do with having my wrists untied. It’s not good for the circulation, you know.’
The professor gave the prisoner a long, cool look, evaluating him.
He certainly didn’t seem dangerous, but she knew that didn’t necessarily mean anything. Hespell watched the pair of them, his gun held at the ready.
‘Mr Hespell, untie the prisoner!’
Hespell hurried to obey the order.
‘It’s the Doctor, actually,’ the Doctor said, rubbing his freed wrists,
‘and thank you.’ He spied his coat lying on the
bunk and picked it up.
‘Thanks for this as well. You’re too kind.’
‘Don’t be so hasty, “Doctor”. One aggressive move and Mr Hespell will shoot you. And not on a stun setting this time.’
‘Understood,’ the Doctor said, getting to his feet. ‘Now, shall we start again? I’m the Doctor. My friend Rose and I picked up your mayday signal and we’re here, wherever we are, to help.’
The professor frowned. ‘You’ve no idea where you are?’
The Doctor looked around and then back at the stern-faced woman.
‘The planet? No. This ship? Well, going on the design and what I saw of it from the outside, I’d have to say it’s not exactly showroom new, is it? What’s the date? Some time in the late twenty-fourth century?
Your ship doesn’t have any serious armaments. Looks to me to be some kind of deep-space explorer.’
The Doctor stole a quick look at the professor, but her face wasn’t giving away anything. Oh well, in for a penny, thought the Doctor.
‘You say you’re the commander, but you’re not wearing a uniform, so we’re not talking military expedition, are we? So. . . who lives in 55
a spaceship like this? Private explorer? Mineral speculator, perhaps?
Am I getting warm?’
‘I am looking for something,’ the professor confessed.
The Doctor’s interest was piqued. ‘And what would that be, then?’
‘A planet called Laylora.’
The Doctor repeated the name, testing the sounds of the word in his mouth, while trying to work out if he had ever heard of the place.
So many planets, so many names. . .
‘Laylora, Laylora. . . Laylora! ’
‘You’ve heard of it?’
The Doctor nodded his head. ‘Yes, I think so. . . It’s one of those legendary worlds that mayor may not exist – all half-truths and rumour.
Of course, I’m probably remembering it from the future. One of the side effects of time travel. . . ’
The professor stared at him, convinced the man was a fool, or mad, or possibly both. ‘But you do recognise the name?’ she demanded.
‘Well, yes, I think so. A planet reputed to be perfect in every way.
The Paradise Planet. But it doesn’t exist, does it? It’s just a myth.’
‘It’s no myth, Doctor,’ said the professor with pride. ‘This is Laylora!’
The rear doors of the bridge opened and Kendle was surprised to see Hespell stride through.
‘Mr Hespell, have you left the professor alone with the prisoner?’
Hespell looked a little embarrassed. ‘She insisted.’
Kendle sighed. ‘Doesn’t she understand – that man might be linked to those creatures that attacked us! Does she want to get herself killed?’
Hespell was smart enough to know that the older man didn’t want an answer to that.
‘How are the repairs to our sensor array going?’ he asked, hoping that changing the subject wouldn’t get him into trouble.
‘Auto-repair systems are cycling through. We should have most of the video and infrared back on-line within the hour.’
Hespell nodded an acknowledgement and slipped into his seat.
56
With power still a precious commodity, most of his console was dead, but at least he could monitor some systems to keep himself busy.
In the command chair, Kendle was deep in thought. Hespell wondered what the man was thinking. Was he really worried about the professor being left alone with the Doctor? Or was he thinking about the creatures that had attacked them, trying to come up with a strategy to deal with them the next time they met?
‘Do you think they’ll come back?’ Hespell asked, breaking the op-pressive silence.
‘Of course they will.’ Kendle was certain of it. ‘Whatever it was they wanted they didn’t get, did they? They’ll be back all right.’
Hespell laughed nervously. ‘So much for paradise!’
Jae Collins was stuck. He had been dispatched to oversee the environmental systems, the control matrix for which had been damaged in the crash. He found the various controls a mess of burnt-out circuit boards and broken connections.
With a heavy heart he had begun to take various parts of the system off-line when a power outage had locked the doors to the room. He tried to call for help via the intercom, but it too had ceased to function.
After a half-hearted attempt to pull open the doors manually, Collins slumped to the floor. Why, oh why, had he ever volunteered for this ridiculous mission? The first time he’d seen the banged-up Humphrey Bogart he knew he’d made a terrible mistake. And yet he had still joined up.
His fellow crewmates were fresh academy graduates with stars in their eyes, the ship’s owner was a steel-hearted obsessive and the pilot was an old soldier looking for one more fight. Every instinct had told Collins that joining this crew was a bad idea. The problem was, he didn’t have a choice. He needed to drop out of sight. Unfinished business with the banks that had funded his space-yacht-racing career and gambling debts that would bankrupt a small planet all added up to an urgent need to get out of his home system and vanish.
The offer of a place on board the Humphrey Bogart had seemed like a lifesaver. Now he feared it might yet cost him his life.
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Collins’s nose wrinkled – something was burning. That’s all he needed. He looked up at the ceiling, at the nozzles from which nothing was shooting. The fire sprinklers must be off-line too. Great!
‘Be careful. It’s very old.’
The Doctor smiled to himself. So you do care about some things, he thought.
Professor Shulough had taken him to her quarters to explain about her quest. She told him about how she had amassed a large collection of clues and evidence relating to Laylora and its location, the most valuable of which was the book he was now examining – a hand-written journal. The yellowing pages were crisp and fragile and the Doctor had to take care as he flicked through not to inflict any further damage.
Reading at a speed no human could match, the Doctor scanned the pages, taking in huge amounts of information. It was an old-fashioned diary, the personal record of someone called Maurit Guillan.
‘Guillan was an explorer working for one of the big corporations back home. His ship was on a long-term survey mission, looking for suitable planets,’ the professor explained.
The Doctor paused in his speed-reading and shot her a cool look.
With his glasses perched on his nose, he looked quite severe, but it was all water off a duck’s back to the professor.
‘Suitable for what? Strip-mining of all its mineral assets?’ he suggested icily.
‘The Empire doesn’t run on air, Doctor. Things have to be built, raw materials have to come from somewhere. The Empire always needs new planets for expansion, colonisation, exploitation. . . ’
‘So having ravaged your own world and made it little better than a giant rubbish-filled quarry, now you’re looking to do the same to other worlds, is that it?’
The professor was quite shocked to see how angry this idea seemed to make the Doctor. Surely he wasn’t that naive?
‘You can’t turn back time, Doctor. Progress is a one-way street.’
58
The Doctor shook his head vehemently. ‘No, no, no. That’s where you’re wrong. It’s cyclic. What goes up must come down. You can break the cycle, although it takes imagination and willpower and real effort. But if you don’t, your empire will fall just like every other empire before it. You can’t ignore history.’
‘I don’t,’ said the professor, taking the ancient journal back from the Doctor and replacing it safely in its temperature-controlled container.
‘Guillan’s ship was the infamous SS Armstrong,’ she went on, as if expecting him to recognise the name.
The Doctor looked blank and shrugged. ‘Is that meant to mean something?’
‘It was in the news for months,’ she said, frowning.
/>
‘I travel a lot,’ confessed the Doctor. ‘I don’t always get to catch up with current affairs.’
‘Hardly current,’ the professor replied. ‘It was nearly fifty years ago!’
She explained that the SS Armstrong was notorious because of the mysterious circumstances in which it had been recovered. The ship had been found drifting, out of control and out of power, at the edge of Draconian space. An unknown disaster had befallen it and it had lost life support along with power. Whatever the reason, the entire crew had been killed.
‘Any ideas what exactly happened to it?’ asked the Doctor.
‘Thousands,’ the professor replied, ‘each one more unlikely than the last. All we know for certain is that when an imperial cruiser patrolling the no-fly zone recovered it, the salvage team found they weren’t the first to have gone on board since the accident. Space pirates had stripped the ship of everything of value.’
‘But that’s not the whole story, is it?’ guessed the Doctor.
The professor smiled and shook her head. ‘There were traces of trisilicate in the hold. Scans revealed that the ship had been carrying an enormous stock of the stuff.’
‘Trisilicate,’ mused the Doctor.
‘A rare and valuable energy
source. . . ’
‘The fuel my ship needs too,’ agreed the professor.
‘So, Guillan’s exploration had been successful?’
59
‘That’s certainly what everyone thought. Although the ship had been stripped of most things, there were a few personal items left.
Including a handful of images printed out and stuck on the wall of Guillan’s cabin. They were various views of the same planet and had been labelled in his own hand. Two words described each image –
Laylora and paradise.’
‘Hence the legend of the “Paradise Planet”?’
The professor nodded. ‘You know how myths develop. It’s like a snowball. It starts with a kernel of truth and builds and builds until,..
well, it becomes something far greater. It takes on the status of legend.
And that’s what happened with Laylora. Soon that’s all people were talking about. Everyone had a theory about where it could be found.’
