by Gary Russell
Immediately Globb could read it. Paragraph three made it quite clear what would happen to Globb, courtesy of the Headless Monks (something about his joining their order permanently), and Globb nodded. ‘Stormcage it will be.’
‘Don’t you get a reduced sentence, though?’
Globb shrugged. ‘A decade suspended. Time to try and get away, I suppose.’
‘From them? Good luck trying.’
They remained sat in silence for the rest of the journey as they plotted and schemed about how to do exactly what was required of them according to their letters.
Which was to go to a planet neither of them had heard of called Aztec Moon and steal an ancient artefact from under the noses of another part of the Church of the Papal Mainframe. Weird, but neither of them felt like arguing with the Vatican.
—
‘A door! We have found a door!’
It was a massive door – that was a fact no one could argue with. Not the military specialists, the learned explorers or even the shuttle crew could find any reason to argue with Professor Horace Jaanson’s proclamation.
‘You’re quite right,’ muttered Colonel Sadkin. ‘That is, indeed, a door.’
‘What’s really fascinating is that it’s a door created by a civilisation vastly different to ours. A whole species created that door leading to heaven knows where and we are here. Now. Today. Ready to open it and explore the unknown.’ Professor Jaanson smiled at Sadkin, as if that made everything all right with the world.
He was an annoying little man, Sadkin had decided about a week ago. When he had arrived at the Mainframe, along with his weird little alien helper, Jaanson had looked like he’d stepped out of a historical movie – he wore a tweed jacket, tweed plus fours, massive boots and a ridiculous tweed deerstalker that made his whole ensemble look as if he were going for a grouse-shoot on one of the Aristocracy Planets rather than exploring a damp, icy, muddy barren place like this. It appeared he had a wardrobe of identical clothes as that was all he’d been seen wearing ever since.
Colonel Sadkin sighed and looked behind him. His Clerics, the Vergers and, standing right back by their shuttle, the two pilots – although they were already bored by the door and had started tapping away on their tablets, no doubt on some social networking site, trying to find company for the night.
Not that anyone was likely to make a trip to Aztec Moon, even for the dubious delights of the two pilots. It was, frankly, a dull planet with large mountains of russet-coloured rock and a couple of local stars that lit the place up moodily. At one point, as the shuttle had buzzed through the atmosphere, they’d spotted a silvery lake lined with more rocks. The colour of the stone had earned the place its name: Aztec Moon.
At least that was what people knew it as. Its true name was Bates’s World, named after some explorer who had discovered it years back. But Sadkin had always heard that – as no one liked the mysterious Bates that much – when humanity came to map it out and discovered that the reddish rock made it look like seas of blood from the upper atmosphere, tales of the violent South American ancient society had been cited and Aztec Moon had stuck as its name.
Right now, the Colonel decided, no matter how exotic or poetic Aztec Moon sounded, it couldn’t disguise the fact it was raining. Hard.
The Colonel adjusted his iVisor and scanned the doorway. It was cut into the side of a large obsidian pyramid, carved from some rock that evidently wasn’t part of the natural landscape of the planet. It was decorative but that gave no suggestion as to why it was there. But it was the only sign so far that Aztec Moon had ever had visitors before, or indigenous people – perhaps they had built it. ‘Indigenous.’ Colonel Sadkin hoped he’d used the right phrase – he had overheard Jaanson and his Talpidian digger say it earlier. The image in his iVisor ran through the spectrum waveforms, searching for evidence of recent activity, dangerous substances or just anything other than dark rock.
What he suddenly saw, making the doorway flash in his iVisor with a purple glow, made him physically step back.
He swung his blaster up, cocking it. Without waiting to be told, his six men did the same.
The sound of this drew Jaanson and his Talpidian assistant’s attention to them. Even the shuttle pilots looked up, albeit only briefly, at this.
‘Colonel?’ the Talpidian nervously stammered, blinking its pink eyes and rubbing its whiskers, as it always did whenever something alarmed it. ‘What is the problem?’
Sadkin pointed at the door. ‘That is. It’s not a door.’
‘It most certainly is a door,’ whined Jaanson. ‘You can plainly see it’s a door. A door for a giant, yes – you would need to be over thirty feet tall just to reach the handle, but it is still a door.’
‘A door,’ confirmed the Talpidian.
Sadkin waved his Clerics and Vergers backwards, then reached forward and rudely yanked Jaanson towards him. Jaanson opened his mouth to complain, but Sadkin told him to shut up.
The Talpidian scurried over, its mole-like nose scrunching up, smelling. ‘I smell danger,’ it finally said.
For the first time Jaanson took things seriously. ‘OK, Colonel, tell me what the problem is.’
‘How long have you been searching for this place?’
Jaanson took a deep breath, like he was delivering a lecture. ‘The Ancients of the Universe, it is believed, once seeded the universe, bringing life. Akin to the Prometheans. The Kokopellian Republic. The Corcini. The—’
The Talpidian nudged Jaanson. ‘Professor, I think the representative of the Papal Mainframe requires the…the edited version.’
Jaanson harrumphed, annoyed at not being able to deliver his full thesis. ‘Basically, Colonel Sadkin, it is considered by many esteemed academics and indeed your own theo-logicians of the Vatican, that life in this quadrant of space, possibly the entire known universe, may have started here. The Ancients of the Universe have been an obsession of mine all my life. Many expeditions have been here; none has even found this door before, let alone come up with answers.’
The Colonel waved towards the pyramid’s door with his blaster. ‘And you’re the lucky one who finally did so, yeah?’
The Professor nodded eagerly. ‘That’s why I contacted the Papal Mainframe. I had worked out that everyone has always been on the dry side of Aztec Moon. But by coming here, to the damp side, I knew my calculations were more accurate than theirs. Generations of explorers wasted their lives – Kos Elwyn, the Brotherhood of Logicians, Holoon-Igma, Bates himself – and even that ridiculous fool Melville Trout – none of them realised it was here, exactly opposite to where they were looking!’
‘Where’s your expert?’
Jaanson looked affronted. ‘Expert? I am the expert!’
The Talpidian nudged Jaanson. ‘He means the archaeologist.’
‘Yeah, where is she?’
Jaanson shrugged. ‘She was supposed to be here hours ago. Ridiculous, you ask for an archaeologist with a penchant for not observing the rules, and they’re late!’
Colonel Sadkin ignored this – deliberately. The less he knew about this Professor Song (and the dubious things she was reported to have done) the better – leave that to Colonel Octavian, the Father of the Chapel charged with looking after her. Instead he yelled out to one of his men. ‘Verger Brown, get the shuttle pilots ready to leave. We’re going.’
Brown dutifully dashed off.
Horace Jaanson was having none of it. ‘Colonel, your orders—’
‘My orders were to bring you here and look after you, providing there was no danger.’ He again jabbed his blaster at the door. ‘That says “danger” to me.’
‘Why?’
Sadkin passed his iVisor, and Jaanson swiped it, placing it over his angry eyes. His head went up and down a couple of times, tracing the height of the door in a series of nods. He adjusted the iVisor a couple of times.
Sadkin just smiled at him. ‘See what I mean?’
Jaanson slowly shook his head. ‘But that�
��s why I needed my expert archaeologist. This confirms what I knew!’
Sadkin finally lost his temper. ‘You knew?’ A couple of his men took a step back in shock. ‘You knew this wasn’t a door but the entrance to a time portal?’
‘I assumed so, yes. It would explain so much about the mystery. I theorised that the Ancients didn’t just die out – they deliberately vanished, went into a time portal. Hopefully this will tell us where or when. And where they took the Glamour.’
‘The what now?’
Jaanson looked at the Colonel in anger, passing – well throwing, really – back the iVisor. ‘Didn’t you read my books, my papers? Why did you come if you are so ignorant of what we will discover here?’
‘I was assigned. Period. End of. I certainly didn’t choose to come to a blood-coloured, wet, cold, windy and smelly rock with you and your oversized mole.’
‘Talpidian,’ corrected the Talpidian. ‘Although I know a lot of humans who make that assumption…’
Jaanson waved him quiet. ‘Yes, Colonel, I believe this is the access to the Pyramid Eternia – the housing to a time portal. That’s why I wanted Professor Song sent here. They say she has experience with time travel.’
‘It’s also probably why she’s always locked in a Stormcage,’ Sadkin countered. ‘Knowing her reputation, she’s probably already escaped en route.’
‘That would be most irritating,’ Jaanson muttered. ‘I need an experienced archaeologist used to dealing with the unusual and unexplained.’
‘Hullo there,’ yelled a new voice.
Jaanson, Sadkin and the Clerics all turned to look at where the voice came from. Even the pilots stopped swiping their tablets again.
Sadkin frowned. On a rocky outcrop about forty feet away were four…people.
The person who had yelled, a human dark-haired woman, dressed in fatigues (but not Cleric ochre, more two-tone black and grey) was waving. Next to her, was a smaller creature in a hooded sweatshirt. Next to that was a young dark-skinned human in similar clothes to the older woman, and finally a weird alien with a pointed chin, red eyes and legs like a grasshopper (otherwise, basically humanoid). He raised his hand and feebly waved too.
‘Hi,’ he added. ‘Sorry to butt in and all that.’
‘Who the hell are you?’ Jaanson yelled.
The woman jumped down and started walking towards the group. Her friends remained where they were, although Sadkin could see the young, hooded one tense slightly, as if anticipating trouble. Fast and sharp, that one, the Colonel thought. He also noted that they all wore backpacks that seemed a tad heavier than normal archaeological equipment would require. He flicked his eyes to Cleric Elias and back at the hooded thing. With a nod only Sadkin could see, Elias made his focus the hooded creature.
‘I must repeat the Professor’s question,’ Sadkin said. ‘This is an official Papal Mainframe excursion. I am Colonel Sadkin, Father of this Chapel.’ He indicated his Clerics and Vergers. ‘Why are you here?’
The woman didn’t speak again until she was right up close to the Colonel, all smiles. She held out a hand, and Sadkin rather surprised himself by shaking it.
‘Professor Bernice Summerfield,’ she said. ‘How do you do.’ She looked over to Jaanson and the Talpidian.
‘And?’ Jaanson demanded.
‘I’m an archaeologist, but probably not the one you were expecting.’
4
Of Crime and Passion
The planet Legion, and its capital, curiously called Legion City, was, the Doctor decided, a strange place. He was quite familiar with edge-of-the-known-galaxy planets; places where only the very brave, the very foolhardy, the very criminal or (more often than not) the very drunk found themselves.
He was also very familiar with planets that were, frankly, made up of a few stores and bars and places of less salubrious occupancy that seemed to thrive on the outskirts of civilisation. Its nearest synonym in human culture would be the American ‘Wild’ West of the mid-nineteenth century. Legion City could just as easily be Tombstone or Dodge City if it weren’t for the spaceport, the flashing neon signs, the constant drizzle and the variety of alien species carrying ever more outrageous weaponry to ‘protect’ themselves.
Apparently there was even a Chief of Security here, like an old Wild West Marshal, but the Doctor hadn’t seen any sign of that. Despite, he noted, having witnessed three bar brawls in the White Rabbit alone – and the Rabbit wasn’t the only bar here by any means.
He was using his smartphone to access information about the place. It was, frankly, sketchy. Keri had told him that one of the reasons Legion was a popular destination for the disenfranchised was its anonymity. What happens on Legion stays on Legion. Often in a shallow, unmarked grave.
Legion City was certainly its only city, but there were other smaller villages and shanty towns on the ‘light’ side of the world. Legion wasn’t a huge planet (more a planetoid really, maybe even a moon) except that it didn’t revolve around a sun – it was simply too far away. It was one of those rare places that actually stood still. Well, it probably didn’t, but its orbit took nearly a lifetime for the average being just to shift from summer to autumn so to all intents and purposes, it never moved.
It was cold and perpetually dusk – again, because the sun was a loooong way away.
It also meant that it had a dark side, literally, the side that faced ‘the unexplored universe’. Over the decades since the planet was ‘civilised’, stories had grown up about the dark side, rumours that it was populated by demonic evil beings who would eat the soul of anyone going there.
The Doctor was quite intrigued by this. As he’d got older, he’d got more daring. Three or four regenerations ago, visiting somewhere like Legion would have been nowhere on his agenda. These days, he quite liked living dangerously. After all, if you’re going to be over two thousand years old, you need a bit of excitement, a bit of a thrill to keep you feeling alive, avoid retreading the same old adventures and holidays that he’d had around his fourth or fifth regenerations.
Of course, right now he had no idea how long he was going to be on Legion at all. Keri was unclear as to whether the postcard-sender that had brought them together here wanted them to wait or what they intended.
And the Doctor had itchy feet – he needed to get moving.
So he made a decision. He’d given Keri one of his seemingly innumerable cell phones. He’d picked up a job lot in Houston recently in exchange for helping a man solve a problem with a rather large mouse that may or may not have come from the planet Vermia a hundred years earlier and been asleep.
So, while he stood on the street outside the White Rabbit, marvelling at the domestication of the Land Crows, he had his sonic screwdriver in his hand, zapping one of these cell phones, giving it universal roaming and linking it automatically to the TARDIS and a phone he himself had started carrying a few months ago when he and his friend Clara had got separated at a Sam Smith concert. Having sorted the phone, he slipped it into a pocket and flipped his sonic screwdriver in his hand, like a gunslinger, ending in a pose like said gunslinger.
At which point a very tall, very muscular bright pink reptile tapped his shoulder. It looked rather like an upright crocodile, from a Disney cartoon.
‘Mine,’ it said.
The Doctor shook his head. ‘I don’t think so, friend. Mine.’
The pink reptile held out its hand. ‘Mine. Pretty green stick. Mine.’
The Doctor just smiled. ‘I think if it was yours, it’d would have already been in your hand. The fact that it’s in my hand would suggest that it is, absolutely and irrefutably, mine. Goodbye.’
Turning his back, he would later be told by Keri the Pakhar, was not considered good form by the Kenistrii. He would also be told that the Kenistrii were pretty famous for disembowelling their victims and eating them raw.
Therefore as he turned away from this big pink crocodile, its mighty paw slammed into his back, sending him crashing into the muddy roadw
ay.
‘Mine,’ it said with such a significant amount of menace and teeth-baring that the Doctor had to wonder if it might be a good idea just to give over the sonic and get the TARDIS to create a new one.
A crowd gathered around the two of them, obviously expecting a fight. Indeed the Doctor could clearly see a number of bewhiskered and toothless old prospector-types taking bets from one another.
Nice. Clearly the pink crocodile was odds-on to win.
‘Why do you want it?’ he gasped at the alien.
‘Mine.’
‘I think we’ve established that isn’t really true. But I do acknowledge you’d like it to become yours. Tell me why.’
‘Mine.’
The Doctor blew air out of his cheeks as he got up. This really wasn’t going to be easy. He flipped the sonic once again, and then tossed it over to the alien. ‘Yours,’ he agreed with a tight smile.
The Kenistrii clearly couldn’t believe his luck, then grabbed the Doctor in a big hug, nuzzled him and walked away with his prize.
As the disgruntled grumbling crowd separated, arguing about their betting not resulting in an eating, the Doctor could see Keri, on a crutch, standing in the doorway of the White Rabbit.
As much as it was possible for a four-foot-nothing giant hamster to register a mixture of weary annoyance and resigned pity, Keri shook her head. ‘Seriously, you’ve nothing better to do than challenge a Kenistrii hatchling, yeah?’
‘I didn’t challenge him…’ the Doctor protested. ‘He started it!’
‘Whatever.’ Keri hobbled back inside and the Doctor followed, fetching the phone for her.
She took it, sniffed it and tapped the screen, staring at the apps that flashed up. ‘And I have this because?’
‘Because we can stay in touch, no matter how far apart we are. Which, if I’m honest, I’m rather hoping will be quite far. Not that I don’t like you…’
‘You don’t, much.’
‘But mainly because I’m not keen on staying on Legion.’