by Steve Cole
Still, she felt happier with the Doctor than anyone else. With little to do on board Chalskal’s ship – and few areas of it open to her in any case – she’d often braved the yellow guards on the door to keep the Doctor company in the strange laboratory. It was a hot, smoky place, all bronze urns and cabinets of light, with flames that burned in many colours at the tug of a chain. The Doctor had taken equipment from his blue box, declaring it to be ‘about a thousand times better than this antique guff, no wonder it’s taken you over a century of study to get this far, Fallomax, with equipment so primitive’ and had looked at the crystals through that.
Each day she woke hoping he’d find good news in the patterns he saw. She could only ever see blurry blobs in the amber slides, but the Doctor … he could spy the universe in a speck of sugar. From the first, she’d seen something in him – a sadness and a sweetness, something to be trusted. A look that said, I’ll risk everything for you, whoever you are, and I won’t ask for a thing in return. But as the days had gone by, that look had grown harder, brooding. Eyes stared into space, and hands that used to wave about now stayed thrust deep into pockets.
‘Are you ever scared?’ she asked him.
‘Yep,’ the Doctor murmured without looking up. ‘Usually by deep conversations about feeling scared.’
‘Well, tough,’ said Estinee. ‘I’m scared. I’m scared of what happens if you and Fallomax can’t save everyone. Of the Kotturuh catching me again.’ She wiped crossly at her eyes. ‘I mean, they found me, didn’t they? Even while I was wearing my Lifeshroud.’
‘They found you by accident. It was me they came to see. At least, unless their Design told them that you’d be coming back to them?’ He sighed. ‘Wish I knew how that worked. Mordeela’s like some sort of organic computer running a prediction program on the minds of the dead …’
Estinee frowned. ‘What?’
‘If we could learn what the program was, maybe we’d find a way to corrupt it …’ The Doctor pouted. ‘Or if we could destroy the computer … or take out the operators …’
‘I thought you were meant to be making a working Lifeshroud?’
‘Well, yeah. The Lifeshroud might go some way to warding off the effects of a Kotturuh attack on the species at the top of the food chain, but the balance of life on each planet will fall out of alignment. Global warming, starvation, terror … Billions of people living at gunpoint.’
‘Yeah.’ Estinee nodded. ‘I can’t even die but I’m still so scared. All the time.’
The Doctor seemed to consider. ‘Not being scared would be worse. Because if you’re not scared, then you’ve got nothing left to lose. Even a short life is full of scary. But when it’s long, it doesn’t matter if you know you’ll survive everything you’ll ever go through. There are some days – some dark, boil-a-sun-away-to-nothing days – when you wonder if the pain is worth the keeping going.’
Estinee sensed the conversation shifting away from her. She got off her stool and stood beside him. ‘Pain?’
‘Yeah. Pain. Keeps showing up with different faces.’ The Doctor half-smiled. ‘You feel guilt over the ones who fell when you didn’t. Loss when you can’t get back to the ones you should’ve kept close. The pain of holding on because you know, despite it all, that life is meant to be lived, not just endured …’ He broke off. ‘Sorry. You’re only young. You don’t know what I mean.’
Estinee opened her mouth to say something. But she bit her tongue, and instead put her hand in his. He noticed after a few seconds, and looked at her.
‘So,’ she said, ‘the trick is to spend our days trying to live instead of trying not to die?’
‘It’s a good trick.’
‘So why do you basically run into danger any time you can?’
‘I don’t. But if I see something wrong, I try to fix it.’
‘And what if it can’t be fixed?’
The Doctor stared into the reflective surface of one of the slides. ‘Everything can be fixed,’ he insisted. ‘If you’ve got the stomach for it.’ The screwdriver thing he carried pinged and he stood up suddenly. ‘Oh! That’s the alarm. Got to see someone … about a something … somewhere.’ With a smile that barely reached his eyes, the Doctor got up and walked to the door. The two yellow guards were waiting outside. ‘Comfort break,’ he said, and pushed between them.
Estinee sat for a few moments. She’d seen the look in the Doctor’s eyes and knew that he really wasn’t afraid. Somehow, that scared her more than anything else. And she’d never seen him take a ‘comfort break’ before.
She sat alone in the empty laboratory for a minute. Then she crossed to the doorway herself and looked up at the guards. ‘I just don’t really want to be here?’
The guards looked at each other, shrugged, and let her pass.
Estinee walked through the flagship’s red and gold corridors. Everything was fancy and filigree. She missed her cabin on the Polythrope. Her room here was bigger and played pictures of natural scenes on the walls, even cropfields. But what was the point? There were no cropfields in space.
Being small, none of the guards registered her as worthy of challenge. So she wended her way down through the decks. And as she passed the steps down to the Escape Pod Deck, she saw the Doctor, half-hidden in shadow.
There you are, she thought, heart thumping heavily as she crouched beside the stairwell. Green eyes glowed in the gloom, and she realised the Doctor was talking with Brian. A secret meeting! This was a change from the norm.
‘… Chalskal has told his president nothing,’ Brian told the Doctor. ‘Nothing about the impending Kotturuh invasion, nothing about providing Lifeshrouds for its people. His “Victis Fleet” is not even owned or governed by the Alliance he claims to represent.’
‘A mercenary force,’ muttered the Doctor. ‘So that’s why we’re stuck up here instead of mobilising a planet to protect itself. Chalskal’s gone rogue.’
‘He has been assembling a private army. These mercenaries were always the intended recipients of the Lifeshrouds. He hoped to create troops who could not die …’
The Doctor nodded moodily. ‘They’re always gonna win out over your regular mortals. But the Lifeshrouds are designed to be worn against the Kotturuh, not in general warfare.’
Brian nodded. ‘I suspect the Ambassador would like to change the direction of Fallomax’s research.’
So he can conquer any planet he chooses. Estinee’s eyes opened wider. The warty little creep!
The Doctor’s expression was cold as stone. ‘Never trust anyone trying so hard to seem humble.’
Brian inclined his head. ‘I bow to the wisdom of your opinion.’
The Doctor gave him a look. ‘How’d you find out all this about Chalskal?’
Brian shook his head. ‘Mr Ball hacked into the Ambassador’s holo-diary. We read several of the speeches he has already penned in anticipation of a successful and bloodless coup.’ He paused. ‘Mr Ball also corrected minor points of grammar and spelling but with luck this won’t be noticed until we are able to act on the information.’ He paused. ‘You will act on this, Doctor?’
‘Oh, yes.’ The Doctor was shaking his head. ‘I’m not letting another planet go down. The Kotturuh must be fought.’
‘Fought?’ Brian was suddenly interested. ‘Then, the Lifeshroud is not purely defensive technology.’
‘Attack is sometimes the best form of defence.’ Did the Doctor sound defensive himself? ‘All right, back to business. We’ll discuss what we do about all this tonight after ten-bells. Come to the main lab. Scramblers on.’
‘Very well,’ said Brian.
Estinee ducked back into the shadows as the Doctor and the Ood climbed the steps and went past. They didn’t notice her. She’d learned well how to hold still and not be seen.
It was then that Estinee saw the Kotturuh watching her from the shadows of the deck below. It was resting on tentacles like giant maggots beneath the skirts of crimson velvet. Estinee froze, filled with the same fea
r she’d known on Destran the night her parents left her.
‘Can’t be here,’ she whispered, closing her eyes. Can’t be.
When she opened them again, the Kotturuh was right in front of her.
Diamond eyes glittered behind the dark spider-web veil. ‘Our Design cannot be broken,’ the Kotturuh announced in its unearthly tones. ‘And all within it have their part to play.’
Shivering, shaky-breathed, Estinee kept her eyes shut for what felt like ages.
When she opened them again, the Kotturuh had gone.
Stunned, numb, she sat very still.
That couldn’t have been real, she told herself, feeling stupid. If the Kotturuh knew where we were, they’d strike us dead right now. You’re losing your mind.
Only … What if you’re not …?
Estinee ran back the way she’d come, to tell Fallomax, and the Doctor.
Fallomax was rattled by Estinee’s story – as much by the Kotturuh’s eerie appearance as by what they knew now about Chalskal.
She told Estinee to stay in her cabin in her Lifeshroud. The teleport was fully charged and programmed to jump her to the main lab if she saw Kotturuh again, or anything else.
After ten-bells, the Doctor walked in with Brian, and Fallomax explained what had happened.
‘Do you believe her story?’ Brian asked.
‘I believe she believes it. Could be hallucination, repressed memories …’ She poked Brian with her look. ‘Synapses misfiring as they heal from her last near-death experience.’
‘Mr Ball suspects you will have had ample opportunity to observe similar misfires on the many occasions you demonstrated the child’s abilities …’
‘We don’t have time for this,’ the Doctor said heavily. ‘I’ll run some tests on Estinee tomorrow. But why would the Kotturuh only come to her?’
‘They have incredible powers of mental projection,’ said Fallomax. ‘Estinee’s spent a long time in Mordeela. They could be using her as a conduit to spy on us?’
‘If everything happens according to your Design, you don’t need to spy,’ said the Doctor. ‘Anyway, if they are using Estinee, why advertise the fact?’
‘Maybe because … they know we can’t stop them, whatever we do.’ Fallomax felt suddenly tired. She imagined Kotturuh gathering in space, all around them. ‘Why do they have to exist?’ she hissed. ‘They’re so obsessed with the idea we should all be born with a death sentence hanging over us.’
The Doctor nodded to Brian. ‘By our time it’s entirely normalised. Death grows ingrained into the fabric of creation. All things end – except for the Kotturuh. Witnesses to life, arbiters of death, they’re the ones that get to go on, out there in the dark. Relentless. Immortal.’
‘To taunt a child for no reason would seem beneath such beings,’ said Brian.
‘Or maybe it just shows them for what they are – cruel, bullying cowards.’ The Doctor had grown suddenly fierce. ‘They’ve come for Estinee because she’s defied the Kotturuh’s Judgement – proving that they’re fallible. They don’t want word of that getting about, so they try to keep her down.’
Fallomax nodded slowly, fumbling for the crumbs of comfort he seemed to offer. ‘But how can they ever be beaten?’
‘Maybe … we need to play by the same rules as they do.’
Brian stared at the Doctor, eyes aglow. ‘What are you saying?’
‘That we do to them just exactly what they do to everyone else.’ The Doctor’s voice had hardened. ‘Turn their own power back on them. Limit their lifetimes. Choose how long they live – and finish their threat for ever.’
Chapter Twelve
‘What are you saying?’ Fallomax wondered at him. ‘It’s tricky enough just to shield someone from the Kotturuh genetic wave – now you think you can actually turn their gift against them?’
‘Don’t call it a gift like it’s something supernatural,’ the Doctor insisted. ‘Call it what it is: a thought-propelled retrovirus weaponised with some very nasty enzymes.’
‘A gift is easier to say,’ Brian noted.
‘How can you ever fight back against the Kotturuh?’ said Fallomax. ‘We’re talking about creatures who can twist life into death as easily as Chalskal takes a bow.’
‘Estinee’s genes have twisted Kotturuh death back into life,’ the Doctor countered. ‘If we could combine that effect with the Lifeshroud’s ability to deflect the Kotturuh Wave …’
‘For that you would need to study the Wave in action,’ Brian pointed out. ‘Perhaps when Skalithai falls …?’
‘It won’t fall,’ the Doctor said. ‘I will stop it happening.’
Brian nodded a fraction. ‘Whatever it takes?’
‘Whatever it takes.’
‘Wait.’ Fallomax jumped up. ‘If we can’t study the Wave in action, perhaps we can study it historically? Analyse its effect on a species’ DNA, with samples taken before, during and after.’
Brian tilted his head to one side. ‘Samples from where?’
Fallomax shrugged. ‘Back to Andalia!’
Betel four-seron-four kaffa, four-four-sky betel.
‘It’s perfect,’ said the Doctor quietly. ‘The new Andalian DNA shows us “after”, the just-killed can show us the during … and, thanks to the bodies in the Tombs of the Ended, we have the original, stable genetic information from centuries ago.’
‘Right,’ said Fallomax. ‘We can see what’s happened biologically to change them and reverse-engineer the metamorphosis. Although how we’d then use it against the Kotturuh I’ve no idea. And, anyway, I can’t see Chalskal just letting us zip off to Andalia before he’s got his Lifeshroud …’
‘Then we’d better give it to him,’ said the Doctor. ‘Hadn’t we?’
The next day, as the flagship chimes sounded evening six-bells, Estinee sat in her room with the lights off, feeling anxious. Since telling Fallomax what had happened, the only times she’d seen either her or the Doctor were when they’d run tests on her, taken blood or shone weird gadgets around her head. What it was all for, they wouldn’t exactly say. She’d told them she hadn’t seen the Kotturuh again, that it had felt more and more like a dream.
The Doctor had hugged her and told her she’d have better dreams soon. But then he’d gone off to work with Fallomax on some new thing with the crystals, while Brian manufactured new testing equipment. And her? She’d been told to rest. Alone, bored, nothing to—
‘Don’t just sit there!’ Fallomax burst in without knocking and the lights rose automatically. ‘We’re showing Chalskal the new Lifeshroud prototype. Come on!’
Estinee hugged herself. ‘I don’t have to wear it?’
‘Not this time.’ Fallomax nodded to the door with her head. ‘Come on. I promise, watching it work will make you feel better.’
So Estinee went with her to the main lab.
Chalskal stood at one end on his three big tails, looking impressively officious in a red poncho with golden braid and a small tricorn hat. Four armed guards stood in attendance. Brian was delving through a bronze toolbox on a float-table, helping the Doctor work on what had to be the new Lifeshroud. It had several ungainly attachments – strange, crystalline circuits and extra cables were plugged into the chainmail. The checks apparently complete, Brian stepped discreetly away.
‘Doctor,’ said Chalskal, pushing himself up to a more regal height. ‘I have indulged you with equipment, materials and time. I trust the presentation is ready to begin – and that I won’t be disappointed?’
‘Here it is.’ The Doctor reached under the Lifeshroud and pulled out a short, tubular object – the tool that Brian had been making all day in the workshop. ‘It’s a brand new prototype.’
‘A prototype for what?’ Chalskal demanded.
‘Not just “what”.’ The Doctor gave a cheery smile. ‘Watch!’
Estinee could’ve sworn time slowed down as things happened in a chain reaction. The Doctor tossed the tube to Brian, who aimed it at the nearest guard. Blasts of
light spat into its torso, knocking it down. As the other guards drew their guns, the Doctor pulled out his sonic screwdriver and twisted hard. The weapons shot sparks and jumped from the guards’ hands – one recoiled and crashed into Chalskal, who went down with a squeak. Calm in the chaos, Brian took down two more of the guards while the Doctor shoved the float-table into the fourth. As the guard doubled over, Fallomax hefted the toolcase and brought it down on the back of his neck. He collapsed and there was suddenly stillness and silence.
Fallomax’s violet skin was flushed almost purple. ‘We did it!’ she bellowed.
Estinee stared, incredulous. ‘You haven’t killed them?’
‘Stunned,’ said the Doctor.
‘Well, it is only a prototype.’ Brian held the metal tube to Chalskal’s hairy wart of a head. ‘Thank you for supplying the materials needed, Ambassador. Is a further demonstration necessary?’
‘NO!’ wailed Chalskal. ‘I protest formally! And informally! You can’t do this to me … The Lifeshroud is needed.’
‘By your mercenary army so they can kill without comeback, we know,’ the Doctor agreed. ‘And they’re going to get them too. We weren’t kidding about the Lifeshroud two-point-zero demo. There’s just one feature we’ve literally not had time to test. Professor, put the Ambassador in the new Lifeshroud, could you?’
Fallomax approached the sweating Chalskal – who was holding very, very still at gunpoint – and dressed him in it as best she could. Once she’d made connections to two of his’s tripod tails, she retreated to stand beside Estinee, leaving the Ambassador looking like a dressed-up child.