by Doctor Who
He had offered his hand and for a moment she was temped to go with him; something in his manner made her think of another adventurous spirit – the Doctor. But then she realised that she couldn’t go anywhere until the Doctor got back. She had explained about her friend and how he would be worried about her. Rez had been disappointed, perhaps even a bit jealous at the news that Rose already had a male companion, but he quickly hid his disappointment and led her back the way they had come. As they reached the doorway, Rez had suddenly stopped and indicated that she should be quiet. Rose frowned
– what was the problem? She squeezed next to him in the doorway –not an entirely unpleasant act – and looked out in the same direction.
Across the ruins, she saw what looked like another human, but this one was dressed in some kind of uniform and, more worryingly, was carrying a weapon.
Rose figured out instinctively that shouting a cheery hello would be the wrong move right now. The best thing was to watch and wait.
Suddenly the red-headed man with the gun was reacting to something above eye level. He raised his weapon. A cold dread hit Rose in the stomach. She had a sudden awful feeling about what was happening in front of her. She was about to shout a warning, but that was when Rez had grabbed her. Rose watched helplessly as the man fired a blast and a moment later the unconscious figure of the Doctor rolled off the roof and fell to the ground. Ironically his own coat, lying where Rose had left it, broke his fall.
Two other humans, also armed, joined the man who had shot at the Doctor. Rose and Rez watched as the three strangers had a hushed conversation. The Doctor’s face was turned towards them and suddenly his eyes flicked open. Rose felt the Doctor looking directly at her. As she watched he gave her a deliberate wink and then closed his eyes again. He’s playing possum, she thought to herself. And he 40
wants me to go along with it.
The oldest of the three strangers, who looked to be in charge, checked the Doctor and, satisfied with his condition, ordered the other two to pick him and his coat up. With a last quick look around the ruins, the leader led his two juniors and their stunned captive away.
‘You should have let me do something,’ Rose exploded as soon as she could speak. ‘They shot the Doctor!’
‘What are you suggesting we should have done? Thrown rocks at them?’
He had a point. It was clear that the pair of them wouldn’t have had a hope against the three, armed men.
‘They must have come from the crashed spaceship,’ Rose decided.
‘And now he’s letting them take him there. But he’s expecting me to follow. I’m sure he is. . . ’
Rez shook his head firmly.
‘I can’t just let him go,’ Rose told him angrily.
‘It’s getting dark. The forest is dangerous at night. We’ll find your friend at the crash site in the morning. I promise.’
Rose could see that Rez was being practical, but that didn’t mean she had to like it.
‘So what happens till then?’
Rez considered for a moment before taking her hand and leading her away. ‘I’ll take you to the village. You’ll be safe there.’
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Asshefollowedhernewfriendthroughtherapidlydarkeningforest, Rose tried to keep calm and not worry about the Doctor. She knew the weapon had just stunned him – he’d been pretending to be unconscious when the two men started to carry him away. If only she knew what the wink had meant. Was it just an ‘I’m OK’ wink or did it mean something else? Was the Doctor expecting her to follow him straight away? Whatever it meant, morning would come soon enough, and Rose was confident that she would catch up with him then. In the meantime, perhaps she should learn a little more about where she was.
‘So what’s this place called?’ she asked, as Rez helped her over a fallen tree.
‘Laylora,’ he told her.
It was a beautiful name for a beautiful planet, and when Rose said as much he smiled.
‘Laylora provides,’ he replied, in the same way that old ladies said,
‘God bless you!’ back home, with an automatic but simple reverence.
Rose noticed that the trees were thinning out and it wasn’t long before they reached the edge of the forest. In front of them was an undu-lating plain, scattered with odd clumps of trees but mostly given over 43
to abundant wild grass. Nestled in a hollow, in the shadow of some small hills, was a settlement. At first glance it looked like a campsite and then, as they drew closer, Rose got a slightly different feeling.
It was familiar but for a moment she couldn’t work out why. Then it hit her – it was a bit like a Native American village, the sort that she’d seen in the movies. Mickey had a bunch of classic Hollywood Westerns on DVD and he’d made Rose sit through a few. They hadn’t really appealed to her, although Kevin Costner wasn’t bad-looking for a bloke his age, but she had been interested in the odd glimpses of the lifestyle that had been featured. And it was that Native American feeling that she was getting now.
The Laylorans were all dressed in simple but colourful clothes and lived in large, tent-like buildings. Fires burned in front of each individual dwelling and a much larger fire could be seen in the middle of the village, where there was a sort of public space. Large human-sized stones with intricate carvings were placed at various points around the village. Rose couldn’t help but see them as granite totem poles.
The tents themselves were made from animal skins sewn together, then draped over complex wooden frames. They were more like the modern camping tents Rose had seen in the Argos catalogue than the classic pointy-roofed tepees, but she didn’t mind that. The fact that she could find something familiar in this alien location was a comfort, and Rose needed all the comforts she could get right now.
Their arrival had caused a bit of a stir. Rose had been introduced to a flurry of people, none of whose names stuck in her head for a moment. The Laylorans were rather excitable; apparently it had been quite a day – not only had there been the shock of the spaceship crashing, but they had also suffered a mammoth earth tremor. And now Rose had suddenly appeared from nowhere. But there was something else, something they weren’t telling her. Rose noticed that some people were giving her intense looks and then turning away when she looked back at them. One woman had red-rimmed eyes, suggesting she had been doing a lot of crying. Had the tremor been worse than they were letting on? Had people died? Rose decided to ask Rez when they were alone again.
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Everyone wanted to know whether Rose had come from the crashed sky boat. She tried to explain that she’d arrived by other means but wasn’t sure she should tell them about the TARDIS. She didn’t want them carting it off and making it an offering to their precious Laylora.
She’d picked up the idea that these people saw the planet as a goddess and she knew what that meant. Like she had said to the Doctor: sacrifices. Rose realised that she had to tread carefully. No matter how familiar these people might seem, she had to remember that they were not displaced Native Americans. If she upset them, she might suffer a much worse fate than being scalped.
Rez led her through the crowd to a particular tent, where she was introduced to his adopted mother, Jaelette, who instantly gathered her into a warm hug. Jaelette was a short, plump Layloran with a kind face and she reminded Rose of her own mother, although to be fair Jackie had never been quite this maternal. Jaelette studied Rose carefully and then looked at Rez with sad eyes. Before she could say anything, a girl who seemed to be a couple of years older than Rose appeared from within the tent. The newcomer rushed to envelop Rez in a huge bear hug, completely ignoring Rose.
‘Where have you been?’ the girl demanded, when she finally allowed him to breathe. ‘I was so worried.’
Rez looked a bit sheepish. ‘I was clearing up at the temple, like you suggested. And then I ran into. . . ’ He stopped, seeing the expression on his sister’s face. ‘Er, this is Rose,’ he continued, changing tack.
‘Rose this is Kay
len, my sister.’
Not his girlfriend, then. Not, she told herself quickly, that she’d mind if he did have a girlfriend; she and the Doctor were here on a mission of mercy, not on the pull, but it might have been awkward if this Kaylen had been his girlfriend, that’s all. However, by the look on the young Layloran woman’s face, it might still be a problem.
‘She’s like you!’ exclaimed Kaylen, and there was an odd mixture of surprise and sadness in her voice.
What did she mean, like him? Was this a blonde thing? Rose realised that most of the Laylorans did have dark-coloured hair, but she was sure that wasn’t what Kaylen was getting at. And then she no-45
ticed the girl’s hand, which was grasping Rez’s arm. She had only three fingers. Three fingers and a thumb. And her other hand was the same.
Now, as she looked more closely, Rose could see that all the Laylorans had the same number of fingers. And once she started really looking at them, she saw that there were more things marking them out as alien rather than human. They had rounder eyes and flatter noses and their ears were gently pointed. Not total Spock jobs, but more like the classic elf look. No wonder Rez had checked out her ears when they had first met. They might not be as weird-looking as the Moxx of Balhoon or the Ood, but these were aliens!
‘I don’t understand. . . You’re human, but they’re not, is that right?’
she asked Rez.
‘We found him when he was a baby. In a little sky boat,’ explained Jaelette.
Rose nodded.
Just like Superman, but without all the super-strength and X-ray vision, she thought to herself.
‘But didn’t anyone come looking for you?’ she asked. ‘You must have come from somewhere. . . ’
Rez shrugged. ‘I don’t know.’
Rose persisted. ‘Somewhere out there someone must know who you are, where you come from. You might have relatives, parents. . . ’
‘The tribe are my family now,’ Rez told her solemnly.
‘Brother Hugan will want to see her,’ Kaylen said, interrupting their discussion.
Rez nodded and led Rose towards a large tent that was more gaudily decorated than most. ‘Brother Hugan is our shaman,’ he explained, so Rose wasn’t surprised when the tent flap was pulled back and an extraordinarily attired Layloran appeared.
He was one of the oldest natives she had seen up to now, with skin so weathered by the years that it looked like leather. As well as the simple tunic and loose-fitting three-quarter-length trousers that most of the males wore, Brother Hugan also sported a heavy-looking ceremonial cloak of vibrant colours that made Rose think of Philip Schofield playing Joseph on her mum’s CD of the Technicolor Dream-
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coat. On his head the shaman had some kind of animal-skin headdress, decorated with bird feathers. To complete the look his face was decorated with stripes of make-up and a heavily jewelled necklace hung around his neck. In fact, Rose now realised, a lot of the Laylorans were wearing jewellery, and most of the bracelets, anklets and necklaces seemed to have large and, to her mind, ostentatious gemstones and crystals in them.
‘Laylora is angry,’ announced the shaman, his fierce expression am-plified by the war paint. ‘She will call forth the Witiku! We must prepare ourselves.’
‘Witiku? What the hell are they?’ queried Rose.
‘Laylora’s protectors,’ Kaylen offered by way of explanation.
Rez must have realised that this was a bit short on detail, because he leaned close to whisper in her ear. ‘They’re mythical monsters that appear when Laylora is threatened. There are pictures of them all over the temple. That costume I was wearing is meant to represent them.’
Rose didn’t like the sound of this. The costume hadn’t been that frightening once she’d realised that a human being was inside it, but the idea of a real creature like that was something else.
Brother Hugan was speaking again. ‘Our ancestors knew how to keep Laylora happy. We have forgotten too many of the old ways,’ he announced.
Rose felt a shiver of apprehension. She didn’t like the direction things were going in. Suddenly she was very aware that she was in the middle of an alien settlement, surrounded by aliens. And that she was alone.
‘We have become lazy in our devotions,’ continued the shaman, looking around at the people of the tribe. ‘There is only one way to placate Laylora’s wrath. We must make her an offering. . . ’
An offering? What was he going to do – hand round a collection plate?
In the silence that followed, Rose began to get a nasty feeling that the old man had something a bit more drastic in mind.
‘We must offer her a sacrifice!’
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The gathered Laylorans reacted with mutters and gasps, but Brother Hugan simply responded by raising his voice even louder.
‘Laylora provides,’ he screamed.
And automatically the Laylorans all responded in kind. ‘Laylora provides,’ they chanted.
‘Laylora provides,’ the shaman cried again, louder still.
And this time the response from the crowd was deafening.
It’s getting a bit like a rock concert, thought Rose. He’ll have them singing the chorus in a minute.
‘Laylora provides,’ Brother Hugan screeched for a third time. ‘But Laylora demands of us in return!’
This time the crowd stayed silent.
‘Laylora demands a blood sacrifice!’
Rose swallowed hard. Blood sacrifice! She didn’t like the sound of that. She looked around and realised, with a shiver of dread, that all the Laylorans were staring at her.
Brother Hugan wanted to offer his precious living planet a sacrifice and he appeared to have already chosen her for the honour.
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The problem with being in a very small crew, Hespell decided, was that there weren’t enough junior ranks to assign all the really tedious jobs to. So even being second pilot (well, technically trainee pilot, not that anyone seemed to be taking his training very seriously on this mission) was no protection against a spell of duty as notional
‘security officer’. Of course, most of the time the ship didn’t need a security officer, so the extra duty hadn’t been a problem. But now. . .
Now they had a prisoner and someone had to guard him. Hespell thought he had definitely drawn the short straw.
He sighed and shifted in his seat. He’d been here for what seemed like hours, watching the prisoner do absolutely nothing. The stun charge the man had been hit with should have ceased to have any effect by now, but he still seemed to be out cold. Hespell wondered how much longer he would have to wait.
‘Not much of a cell, is it?’
He nearly fell off his chair. The prisoner was awake. Fully awake, when a moment ago he’d appeared to be dead to the world, completely unconscious.
‘I’m sorry,’ he muttered, utterly wrong-footed.
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‘Oh, it’s nothing to apologise for. I’ve seen worse. In fact, by most standards this is pretty cosy. Just not very cell-like, that’s all.’
The prisoner was sitting up now, looking around the cabin with curious eyes. He winked cheerfully at his guard and carried on examining his surroundings.
‘It’s not actually a cell, you see. . . ’ Hespell started to explain. ‘It’s my cabin.’
‘I’m being held prisoner in someone’s bedroom?’
‘We. . . er. . . don’t really have anywhere else.’
‘A ship this size? That’s odd.’
‘Decks three, four and five are mothballed,’ Hespell told him. ‘We’re a small crew.’
The prisoner considered this for a moment and then nodded. ‘Fair enough. I won’t complain if you don’t. I’m the Doctor, by the way. . . ’
And with that he was on his feet. ‘I’d shake your hand, but I’m a bit tied up,’ he added, indicating his bound wrists.
Hespell actually found himself reaching forward to untie the man when he remembered the nature of th
eir relationship and brought his weapon up to bear on the stranger.
‘Trainee Pilot Hespell,’ he offered a little lamely.
‘Pleased to meet you, I’m sure,’ said the Doctor, beaming. ‘There’s really no need for that, you know,’ he added, gently pushing the barrel of the weapon away from him. ‘I’m not dangerous.’
Hespell had to admit the man didn’t look very dangerous. He seemed to be in his early thirties, dressed in a classic pinstriped two-piece suit, the kind that had been in and out of fashion for centuries.
A rather scruffy tie was loosely knotted around the neck of his white shirt and a pair of casual sneakers were on his feet. Definitely not dangerous.
‘I guess you don’t look much like the monsters. But I didn’t know that when I shot you. . . ’ Hespell allowed himself to look a little embarrassed. ‘Sorry about that.’
The Doctor smiled again. ‘Not to worry. No permanent damage done.’
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Hespell was relieved. He didn’t like the idea of shooting anyone, and certainly not someone who was as reasonable as this.
‘So what was that about monsters, then?’ asked the man casually.
And Hespell was so beguiled by the stranger’s charm that he found himself talking.
The Doctor listened carefully to his account of the attack by the creatures, interrupting occasionally to ask the odd question. When Hespell had finished the Doctor sat back on the bunk and threw his still-tied hands behind his head.
‘Interesting,’ he commented simply.
Hespell couldn’t quite believe his ears. Interesting! ‘Actually, it was pretty frightening to be honest.’
‘Running away from monsters? You get used to it after a while.’ The Doctor flashed another quick smile, but his eyes remained serious. ‘So tell me, what exactly are you doing on this planet?’
‘If you wouldn’t mind – that’s one question I’d like to hear your answer to.’