by Doctor Who
‘Are you a scientist?’
The young woman shook her head. ‘Not really. Navigation is my field. But I’m curious.’
The Doctor smiled. ‘Nothing wrong with curiosity.’
‘So what does this stuff do?’
‘If it works, it should stop the creatures in their tracks.’
‘But will it kill them?’
The Doctor looked away.
‘You don’t know the answer, do you?’
He turned back to her and met her gaze. ‘Not entirely, no. But I’m hoping it won’t be fatal. I want something to use defensively. I don’t want to kill unless I have to. We know it had a noticeable effect on the Witiku in a small dose, so I’m hoping a much larger amount will have an even greater effect. There’s only one way to find out, though.
We need to test it.’
Baker realised what the Doctor was suggesting. ‘You want to try it on the creature we caught?’
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‘Of course not. That would be cruel and dangerous. No, we need to take a cell sample from the creature and use the liquid on that.’
The Doctor looked around and started picking up bits of equipment.
‘What are you doing?’
‘Well, I don’t think we’re going to get the patient in here, do you?
So we’d better take what we need to the cargo bay and do our little experiment there.’
‘Boys!’ sighed Rose as she walked through the cargo-bay doors and found the pair of them absorbed in their game. Neither the crewman nor Rez acknowledged her presence. She walked up behind them and tried to get a look at the playing field, which was a football-sized hologram projected from the device. Inside the hologram she could see a number of zombie creatures, which Rez appeared to be shooting at. Rose shook her head. The more things change, the more they stay the same, she thought. It was obvious that she wouldn’t get any sense out of them until the game was over, so she wandered across to take a closer look at their prisoner.
Lying on its back, chained to the floor, the thing which Rez had called a Witiku didn’t look quite as frightening as it had last night, but Rose was still nervous to be this close. The chains holding it in place were heavy and it didn’t look very comfortable. She found herself feeling sorry for the poor creature. In the cold light of day it seemed more of an animal and less of a monster. Something sparkling on its chest caught her eye – could it be some of the jewels that the villagers wore? Leaning over, Rose gave it a closer examination. It was one of the necklaces that the Laylorans all wore and, furthermore, Rose was fairly sure that she had seen one just like this before, although she couldn’t pinpoint exactly where.
While she was trying to remember, she noticed that the creature’s chest was rising and falling in a new rhythm. But before she could react, its whole body suddenly buckled, knocking her off balance and causing her to fall face first into its hairy chest. With a roar of fury, the creature stopped pretending to be asleep and pulled at the chains with each of its four arms. For Rose it was like being on a bucking 104
bronco, as the creature used all its strength to yank at the bonds. To her horror, the chains were not up to the strain. They twisted and then snapped simultaneously. The creature sent her flying as it stumbled to its feet.
Rose found herself colliding with Hespell, who was reaching for his weapon. The two of them fell in a heap on the floor. Rez dropped the EntPad and backed against the nearest wall as the creature moved towards him.
Rose looked around to see where Hespell’s weapon had fallen. Her heart sank as she saw that it had skidded right across the room. The Witiku was moving towards Rez, who looked petrified. Its talons sprang out from the back of each paw and it raised its highest arms, ready to strike.
Rose rolled to her feet. ‘Oi, what about me, then?’ she called, and managed to distract it momentarily before it changed course and headed towards her. So much for that plan.
Rose backed away in the direction of the weapon that Hespell had dropped. Her foot hit something hard and, without taking her eyes off the creature lurching towards her, she squatted and reached down.
Unfortunately for her, it wasn’t the weapon – it was the end of one of the broken chains and was no use at all. The Witiku swiped one of its arms at her and Rose jerked back just in time to feel the edge of the talon brush through the ends of her hair.
Suddenly the doors opened and the Doctor was there. Even in her vulnerable state, Rose felt a sudden burst of hope. The Doctor was guaranteed to sort it out. Scrambling backwards, like some kind of human crab, she realised that the Doctor didn’t seem to have a weapon.
Instead he had his arms full of what looked like laboratory equipment.
Behind him the female crew member, Baker, was carrying a large plastic container full of some brown liquid.
‘Change of plan,’ announced the Doctor, and threw the armful of equipment in the path of the Witiku. But the creature just batted it away with its four arms and kept coming.
Baker tossed the container of liquid to the Doctor. ‘Try this,’ she suggested.
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The Doctor looked torn, not wanting to harm the Witiku if he could avoid it.
‘Doctor!’ Rose urged him, ducking out of the way of another swipe of claws.
She was backed into a corner now, with no way to escape. The Doctor had no choice but to act.
‘Sorry, fella,’ he muttered as he tore the cap off the container and threw the contents at it.
The creature screamed as the liquid hit him, then fell to the floor.
Rose was also splashed with the liquid, which is when she realised that she wasn’t being soaked by water.
‘It’s jinnera!’ she gasped.
The creature was still on the floor, screaming.
The Doctor looked pained. ‘I wanted to test it on a cell sample first,’
he explained.
Rose understood. ‘You didn’t have a choice,’ she told him.
Baker helped Hespell get to his feet. Across the room Rez groaned and clutched at his head.
‘Look!’ cried Baker, pointing at the creature, which was still lying on the floor but was now shaking like a leaf and its hair seemed to be shrinking.
The Witiku continued to react to the soaking it had received. As they watched, amazed, the creature began to change right in front of them. Its hair retracted and its whole body shrank. It became man-sized.
With a sudden burst of inspiration, Rose realised what was happening.
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‘The Witiku – they’re the missing people!’ Rose announced.
Even as she said it the transformation of the Witiku that had been captured was complete. A confused, dazed and naked Brother Hugan was lying on the floor. The Doctor hurried forward and gave the poor man his coat to preserve what little dignity he had.
Ania Baker was open-mouthed at what she had seen.
‘How is that possible?’ she asked. ‘How can something change its form like that?’
Rose glanced at the Doctor and smiled to herself. ‘Oh, you’d be surprised,’ she muttered.
‘There are more things in heaven and earth,’ started the Doctor, before stopping himself mid-quotation. ‘Sorry, channelling old Will again. Bad habit.’
The Layloran shaman was still looking pale and shaky. He didn’t seem to know where he was.
‘Brother Hugan! Are you all right?’ Rez asked him urgently, his concern overcoming the shock and fear of the last few minutes.
Brother Hugan did not answer, but just stared into space, shivering uncontrollably.
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The Doctor looked at Rez with a serious expression. ‘I’m sorry. I don’t think he’s very well at all.. Let’s get him to the MedLab.’
The medical computers hummed happily and the read-out screens showed that the vital signs were normal, in so far as Professor Shulough could tell what normal was for the natives of this planet.
‘How is he?’ asked the Doctor, who was lookin
g on with interest.
Ten minutes had passed since they’d brought the shaman into the MedLab and so far there was no sign that the attention he was receiving was having any effect.
‘He’ll live,’ she told him coolly, before turning away to deal with what she considered more interesting matters.
Rose saw the Doctor bristle and knew that he was biting his tongue.
This Professor Shulough was a cold fish all right and Rose had taken an instant dislike to her.
‘How did you know the jinnera would have that effect?’ the professor demanded.
‘I didn’t, it was just a theory based on Rose’s observation.’ The Doctor winked at Rose.
‘When the Witiku attacked the village I threw my drink at one of them and it reacted badly,’ she explained.
‘Do you make a habit of throwing drinks at people?’ asked the professor sarcastically.
Rose shot her a dark look.
‘So I brewed up a little solution and, when the creature threatened to escape, we used it,’ continued the Doctor, ignoring the interruption,
‘and now we know where all these monsters are coming from.’ He smiled, pleased with their progress.
The professor still wanted more answers. ‘But why is it happening?’
The Doctor thrust his hands into his pockets. ‘Why? Oh, why can come later. Right now the important thing is that we’ve got a way to deal with the creatures. And not just a weapon, a cure.’
‘You think it’s some kind of illness?’ asked Rose.
‘Not as such, no. I was talking metaphorically,’ he told her, ‘although now you come to mention it, maybe it is some kind of disease.’
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He stopped and frowned, running through the possibilities. There was something else, something he wasn’t getting. Then, with a quick shake of his head, he left the problem to tick over at the back of his mind and returned to the present.
‘First things first,’ he announced. ‘We need to get a whole lot of this jinnera stuff made up. Trouble is, there don’t seem to be that many bushes in this area of the forest,’ he added.
Rez, who had been standing over at Brother Hugan’s bedside, watching the old man sleep, cleared his throat. ‘I might be able to help you there,’ he told them. ‘We use jinnen for so many things, we’ve huge stockpiles of it in the village.’
On the bridge of the Humphrey Bogart, Kendle was checking the progress of the ship’s auto-repair systems. Everything seemed to be coming along nicely. The doors at the rear of the bridge opened and Professor Shulough appeared.
‘Another twelve hours and we should be able to take off. But without some trisilicate we won’t get very far,’ he told her.
This didn’t seem to be what the professor wanted to hear. ‘Then we’d better confirm now one way or another whether this is Guillan’s paradise. If it is Laylora, trisilicate shouldn’t be a problem,’ she reminded him. She then said that she was intending to visit the village with the Doctor, Rose and the human boy, Rez.
Kendle, as conscious of security as ever, didn’t think this was a good idea. ‘It might be dangerous. I think I should come with you.’
The professor shook her head. ‘There’s no need. The Doctor’s made up some more jinnen solution – enough to deal with those creatures if we should run into any.’
‘OK, but be careful,’ he insisted.
Sadly, he watched her leave the bridge. What had happened to the bright-eyed young woman he remembered so vividly on her graduation day? He shook his head slowly. It was no good thinking about the past; that Petra Shulough was long gone. And in his heart he knew why.
Trying to put his concerns about the professor out of his mind, he 109
turned back to the job in hand. He just hoped she would find what she was really looking for. Whatever that was.
Rez had been left alone in the MedLab, to keep an eye on the recovering shaman. The old Layloran was sleeping more peacefully now and some colour had returned to his cheeks. Rez hoped he was going to be all right. The tribe needed him more than ever in the present crisis, even if his ideas were a little old-fashioned.
Across the room was the bed that had, until recently, been occupied by the other patient, the female crew member called Baker. Thinking about what had happened to her, he now felt a terrible guilt. It had been one of the Witiku that had nearly killed her and that meant one of his tribe. How could a Layloran be turned into a creature like that?
It seemed like magic, the sort of mystical event that Brother Hugan was always talking about, but Rez couldn’t believe in stuff like that.
Especially here in this spaceship, surrounded by high technology. And yet. . . he had witnessed it with his own eyes: one moment it had been a Witiku, one of Laylora’s legendary guardians, the next it had been Brother Hugan. Had this kind of transformation happened before in the distant past? Was that the source of the legends?
Brother Hugan coughed and opened his eyes.
Rez turned to give him his full attention. ‘How are you?’ he asked anxiously.
The old man’s eyes flickered around the room, panicky.
‘It’s all right,’ Rez assured him. ‘You’re safe now.’ He gripped the old man’s hand and was shocked at how frail it felt. How could it have been a massive taloned paw before?
The old man’s lips were moving but no sound was coming out. Rez leaned closer to the old man’s mouth. ‘Water,’ he croaked in a parched whisper.
Rez looked around the room – there was no sign of a jug of any kind. But he remembered seeing Rose get water from somewhere –one of the machines, but which one? He crossed the room to where Rose had been standing. It must have been on this side of the room, 110
he thought. And then, without warning, something exploded on the back of his head and he fell to the ground.
Professor Shulough found the door to her quarters open and frowned.
She was sure she’d left it locked, as she always did. Moving cautiously into the room, she discovered the reason for her confusion. It was the Doctor. He and the girl Rose were looking through her paradise collection – all the artefacts and bits of evidence that she had accumulated during her search.
‘Don’t you understand the concept of privacy?’ she asked, but if she was hoping to surprise the stranger she was sorely disappointed.
He glanced up, as if he’d been waiting for her, and then looked back at the flight report he’d found. ‘Ah, there you are. Ready to go, are we?’
The professor grabbed the sketchbook that Rose was looking at and dropped it back into its folder. ‘Do you mind? This is private,’ she insisted.
‘Sorry,’ said Rose. ‘We were only looking.’
‘Clues,’ explained the Doctor, rather obliquely. ‘Is this all the stuff you have on the so-called Paradise Planet?’
‘Yes, and it’s taken me years and a small fortune to bring it all together. I’m not about to start sharing it now.’ Angrily, she snatched the flight records from the Doctor’s grasp.
He looked up and smiled innocently. ‘But you think you’ve solved the mystery, don’t you? You think this is the Paradise planet that Guillan found?’
The professor swallowed hard as the Doctor’s intense brown eyes seemed to bore deep inside her. He was a hard man to argue with.
‘I think so, yes.’
‘So what does all this matter now? It’s academic if this is the place you have been looking for.’
She couldn’t fault the logic of that.
‘But if this stuff does relate to this planet,’ continued the Doctor, pausing to flash a grin at her, ‘then it might just tell us something about what’s going on with the shape-shifting locals and all that.’
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Rose frowned. ‘They’re shape-shifters?’
‘Well, no, not as such. Not in the classic sense,’ admitted the Doctor.
‘Not like your Axon or your Zygon, or any other gon come to that. . . ’
Rose gave the professor a sym
pathetic look – he was off again, blithering.
‘But they did change shape, or transform,’ continued the Doctor, getting back to the point, ‘and I for one would like to know why.’
‘And have you found anything?’ asked the professor levelly.
The Doctor’s face fell. ‘No,’ he admitted. ‘So let’s try plan B.’
Rose smiled. ‘There’s a plan B?’ she teased him, sounding surprised.
‘That makes a change.’
‘There’s a plan C too,’ he murmured in a slightly menacing way,
‘which involves taking you home and leaving you with your mother for a couple of weeks, so don’t push it!’ And then he was off, his long legs propelling him to the door at most people’s jogging speed. ‘Come on, then. Let’s go and see the natives. I hear they’re friendly.’
And at that point, as if to throw doubt on his assertion, Rez appeared staggering down the corridor, clutching the back of his head.
‘What happened to you?’ asked Rose, worried.
‘Brother Hugan,’ he replied simply.
The Doctor was concerned. ‘He hit you?’
Rez nodded and then instantly winced, the sudden movement doing nothing for the state of his head, which was throbbing with pain. ‘Hit me and then ran off.’
‘Right,’ said the Doctor commandingly. ‘Let’s get you something for that headache and then we’d better go after him, before he does anything stupid.’
‘This might sting a bit,’ warned the professor as she dabbed at the back of his head with a medicated cleansing wipe.
Rez winced. She wasn’t wrong.
‘I’ll put a dressing on it,’ she told him. ‘It’ll speed up the healing.’
Rez looked at the professor as she searched through the cabinet for a bandage. For the first time since he had met her he was seeing 112
something akin to a caring side. Perhaps his initial evaluation had been too harsh.
‘Thank you,’ he said with genuine gratitude as she gently fixed the dressing in place with a spray of instant plaster.