by Doctor Who
Kendle shrugged. ‘There were some bits and pieces of cleaning equipment that I’ve managed to make something out of,’ he told the Doctor. ‘Do you really think spraying the creatures with this stuff will turn them back to their native form?’
The Doctor pulled a face. ‘That’s the theory.’
He leaned over Kendle’s console and scanned the information on the screen. ‘Talking of theories – oh, systems at 95 per cent, that’s good. . . Where was I? Oh yes, theories. . . ’ He paused and frowned, as if marshalling his thoughts. ‘What’s the deal with Professor Shulough and you, then?’
Kendle’s face hardened. ‘What are you suggesting?’ he whispered menacingly.
The Doctor took a step back and waved his hands airily, demonstrating both that he meant no harm and, more importantly, that he 123
wasn’t armed. He wished he’d had the foresight to put his glasses on
– a man like Kendle would never hit a chap wearing glasses, would he?
‘I was just wondering, that’s all. How the pair of you hooked up.
Why you’re so loyal to her. That’s all. Nothing else.’
Whatever offence Kendle had taken, he seemed prepared to accept this as an apology. He sat back down in his seat. ‘She’s my niece,’ he told the Doctor.
‘You’re her uncle!’ the Doctor said, genuinely caught out by this revelation.
‘That’s how it usually works. She’s my late sister’s daughter.’
‘An uncle, the uncle,’ repeated the Doctor, running the new information through his head like a computer accepting new data. ‘Uncle Kendle the Marine. Right. . . You said your sister was dead?’
Kendle bowed his head.
‘Petra was just ten when it happened. My sister and brother-in-law were members of Guillan’s crew. She saw them leave on board the Armstrong and they came back in coffins.’
The Doctor nodded. It was all beginning to make sense now.
‘It was just one of those terrible things. I was away, fighting in the war. I came back and took Petra in.’
‘You brought her up?’
‘She was my sister’s only child,’ he replied simply, as if that said everything, and in a way it did.
‘You must be proud of her. She seems to have turned out really well, all things considered,’ the Doctor said after a pause.
Kendle raised his head and looked the Doctor squarely in the eyes.
‘Do you really think so?’
The Doctor hesitated, for once choosing not to fill a silence with a stream of words.
‘She used to be a jolly little girl,’ continued Kendle. ‘Always laughing.’
He got up and made himself busy at another console. Even though Kendle’s back was turned, the Doctor could tell he was tearful at the memory.
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‘I don’t think I’ve seen her laugh since her parents died.’
‘Grief can be a terrible thing,’ the Doctor suggested sympathetically.
Kendle spun round to face the Doctor. ‘But it has to end some time.
You have to move on.’
‘And she hasn’t?’
Kendle sat back against the console. ‘I just don’t know. She doesn’t ever talk about it. She’s so driven. First it was to complete her schooling. Then it was to get every higher academic qualification she could.
And finally she began researching space lore, all the myths and legends of the last frontier.’
‘All of which eventually brought her here. To paradise.’
Kendle nodded. ‘But do you think it will make her happy?’ He then shook his head sadly before answering his own question. ‘I myself rather doubt it. . . ’
The Doctor decided it was only fair to leave the man alone with his private thoughts. But as he went to see how the others were getting on, he had a lot of new information to mull over.
In the lab Hespell and Baker were already engaged in the business of producing a sufficient quantity of the jinnen mixture. Rez was watching, fascinated, but Kaylen was wandering round the lab, looking very uncomfortable, like a trapped animal.
‘How are you doing?’ asked the Doctor, as he strode in.
‘Not long now,’ Hespell reported.
A large tank had been filled with brown liquid, which was bubbling away furiously. It resembled alchemy more than science, but the Doctor smiled his approval regardless. He then turned his attention to Kaylen, who was still looking at everything with a mixture of fear and apprehension.
‘All a bit much for you?’ he asked. ‘All this. . . ’ He waved an arm around the room, but his gesture took in the entire spaceship.
Kaylen nodded, grateful for his understanding.
‘I think I’ll get back to the village,’ she suggested nervously.
The Doctor frowned. ‘It’s getting dark out there.’
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Kaylen gave him a shy shrug. ‘I know my way through the forest. I know where the traps are.’
‘Traps?’ queried the Doctor. ‘What traps?’
Rose was finding it increasingly difficult to see where she was treading. The canopy of leaves, coupled with the setting sun, meant that it was getting very dark at ground level and she kept tripping over raised roots.
Even the professor, who was by now very hot and sweaty, had agreed to slow down, fearing that their headlong pace might give them both twisted ankles. ‘How far away are these ruins, then?’ she demanded.
Rose wasn’t sure she could answer with any authority. She had a mental picture of the relative positions of the village, the spaceship and the ruined city, and in her head at least they were equidistant, about five kilometres apart. She couldn’t be certain, but she imagined that they’d been walking for well over an hour by now. Surely that was long enough to cover five kilometres?
‘It can’t be far now,’ she said, but the professor didn’t looked very convinced.
A nearby tree had low-slung branches that offered an easy climb and, to Rose’s surprise, the older woman suddenly grabbed one and started up the tree.
‘What are you doing?’ Rose cried in surprise.
The professor, showing skills that would flatter a monkey, was already disappearing into the higher reaches. She was now high enough to push her head through the top branches and look out over the rest of the forest.
‘I’m getting our bearings, of course,’ she replied. ‘And I can see something, some kind of tower.’
‘That’ll be the central temple, then,’ Rose told her.
As quickly as she had climbed the tree, the professor descended. ‘It’s over that way,’ she said, with a ‘told you so’ look. She was pointing away from the path. ‘The Laylorans said to keep to the path,’ Rose reminded her.
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The shortest way between two points is a straight line,’ replied the professor. ‘This path may be a lot of things, but it isn’t straight.’
Without waiting for any further discussion, she set off in the direction she had indicated. Rose had no choice but to follow her.
Two minutes later disaster struck. It happened very quickly: one moment the professor had been walking along in front of her and the next she was gone. The ground seemed to collapse under her feet.
Rose realised that what had appeared to be a solid carpet of leaves and undergrowth was, in fact, just a thin covering that concealed a deep pit.
Rose crept closer to the edge and peered into the darkness. ‘Are you all right?’ she called down, unable to make out anything in the gloom.
‘Just the odd bruise,’ the professor’s voice floated up from the blackness. ‘No major damage. Apart from to my pride, of course.’
It was the nearest thing to a joke that Rose had ever heard from the professor. The woman must be in shock, she thought, a little unkindly.
Now that her eyes were adjusting to the light, Rose could make out the figure of the professor, sitting on the floor of the pit some four metres below. It was a long drop but some of the matting that had concealed
the pit had fallen with her and cushioned the impact.
‘I’ll try and find something to get you out,’ Rose said, but the professor just shook her head in response.
‘Go back to the ship. Get help from there,’ she instructed, but it was too late. Rose had already moved away.
The sun had all but disappeared now, making it hard to discern very much at all. Rose saw that several of the plants round about resembled vines; perhaps she could make some kind of rope? Taking care not to fall into any traps herself, she began to collect suitable vines, winding them round her arm like a garden hose. She was about to head back in the direction of the pit and the professor when, from somewhere nearby, a twig cracked and she could hear rustling in the undergrowth..
Rose froze where she was, hardly daring to breathe, her left leg hovering a few centimetres above the ground. Was she hearing the professor moving deep in the pit? She couldn’t be certain. It had 127
sounded closer than that, hadn’t it? Slowly, she placed her foot down and, having regained her balance, she tried to see where the noise was coming from. There it was, over to her left. Something was clearly progressing through the forest. Dare she call out, or would that be a mistake? A moment later she knew that staying quiet had been the right strategy, as a Witiku appeared, pushing through the trees. Had it seen her?
‘Rose? Rose, are you there?’
The Witiku stopped at the sound of the human voice and changed direction, moving away from Rose and back towards the pit. Rose followed it, going as quickly as she could but making sure she did nothing to draw attention to herself.
The Witiku was roaring now, sensing prey.
‘Rose?’
This time there was no doubting the fear in the woman’s voice. She was trapped and the monster was about to find her, cornered and vulnerable. Rose couldn’t ignore her.
‘Professor, it’s one of the creatures,’ she called out desperately.
‘Look, I’ve found something we can use as rope, but you’ll have to be ready when I say the word!’
Unfortunately, shouting like this meant the creature was now aware of a second human to target. It swung round and faced Rose, who realised that the pit was between her and the Witiku. Moving quickly, she tied one end of her vine ‘rope’ round a thick tree trunk at the side of the pit. She looked up from completing her knot to see where the monster had got to. It was circling the pit in a clockwise direction.
Leaving the vine, Rose started moving in the same direction.
The Witiku extended its terrifying talons with a noise like knives being sharpened. If it wasn’t for the danger she was in, Rose thought, the scene might look quite amusing. The Savage Beast and the Plucky Heroine, dancing round the Pit of Death!
She realised she was now back at the place where she’d tied the vine. Not taking her eyes off the monster, she crouched down and tipped the untied end of the rope into the pit.
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‘Grab hold now,’ she instructed the professor. ‘But don’t start climbing yet!’
Watching the Witiku getting ever closer, Rose knew what she had to do. The creatures were big and heavy, but that was also a weakness.
They weren’t exactly nimble. She’d have to time this to perfection, but they had no other choice. She could now smell the familiar odour of the creature’s fur and could hear its ragged and angry breathing. It raised one of its upper arms, ready to slice down at her.
Now, she thought, and dived towards the creature’s legs, rolling under its arms and pulling off a credible forward roll. Getting to her feet as quickly as she could, she saw that the Witiku had also turned around. Roaring angrily, it took another step towards her.
Again, she had to make sure her timing was impeccable.
She
dropped her shoulder and charged at the creature’s legs. Mickey had once given her a long lecture about the art of the rugby tackle. It had been pretty tedious at the time, but she had remembered one key idea
– hit hard and hit low. She shoulder-barged the Witiku just below its knee with her full weight. She twisted and rolled to one side, praying that the talons arcing through the air wouldn’t connect. Above her, the creature flailed its arms, its whole body knocked off balance. For a moment it seemed to be frozen in midair, and then, finally, it fell backwards into the trap, roaring angrily the whole way down.
Rose got to her feet quickly and ran to the edge of the pit, screaming, ‘Professor! Climb now, Professor!’
At the bottom of the pit she could just make out the thrashing figure of the Witiku, but much closer another figure was moving. Climbing up the side of the pit, using the vine, was the professor.
She was surprisingly agile for an older woman, Rose thought. A moment later a hand popped up and Rose grabbed it. As the professor clambered out of the pit she was breathing heavily and looked a little pale, but she was otherwise unharmed. They could hear that back down in the pit the creature was getting to its feet and attempting to climb out after them.
‘Come on,’ urged Rose, who was still holding the older woman’s hand.
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They began to run in the direction of the ruins. Rose just hoped there were no more traps along the way. The professor, who seemed to be in a state of shock, had never appeared more human to Rose before.
‘Why did you come back for me?’ she gasped.
‘Couldn’t leave you down there, could I?’ Rose replied, without slowing down.
‘But you could have been hurt. Or worse. You should have left me.’
Rose slowed down. They’d reached the more complete buildings now and the temple, which was their target, was in sight. Just another hundred metres or so. But Rose was tiring, and if the frantic running was getting to her, what was it doing to the professor? The pair of them stopped and both bent double, trying desperately to control their breathing. Rose glanced over at the professor and shook her head.
‘I couldn’t just leave you. We don’t do things like that.’
For a moment the professor wondered who the ‘we’ was, but then she realised. ‘You and the Doctor?’ she asked, and Rose nodded a confirmation. ‘So what kind of things do you do? Rescue people, fight monsters?’
‘Yeah, that’s about the size of it,’ Rose confirmed. ‘That and run a lot! Come on!’
The Witiku that had fallen into the pit burst out of the forest some distance behind them. It was going to be a foot race now. Rose and the professor set off, the younger woman leading the way towards the entrance.
They were now running along the side wall of the temple. Suddenly she became aware of movement over to her left. A glance confirmed her worst fears. Three more of the creatures were moving to cut them off.
‘Rose!’ called the professor with alarm. ‘There are more of them!’
Rose was about to say that she had already seen them when she realised that the professor was looking in another direction entirely.
Rose spun around, frantically looking for an escape route, but there wasn’t one. They had nowhere left to run. The creatures had them surrounded.
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KendlefoundtheDoctorintheprofessor’squarters,lookingthrough her precious collection of Paradise Planet evidence. He knew he ought to be angry, but the expression on the stranger’s face pulled him up short. It was identical to the one he’d seen on his niece’s face a thousand times before. A look of puzzled concentration, as if at any moment a vital connection would be made.
The Doctor didn’t look up from the journal he was reading even though he must have heard Kendle enter the room.
‘The answer is in all this somewhere,’ he said, as if that explained everything.
‘You shouldn’t be in here,’ Kendle started, but then changed tack as what the Doctor had said registered. ‘What answer? What’s the question?’
The Doctor glanced over his shoulder and raised his eyebrows behind his glasses. ‘Ah, that’s just it. If I knew the question I’d be halfway there. Thing is, I don’t know th
e question or the answer. Which makes looking for either really, really difficult.’ He turned away modestly and grinned. ‘Still, wouldn’t want it to be too easy, would we? Where’s the fun in that?’
‘I don’t understand,’ replied Kendle.
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‘Are you going to stand there feeding me straight lines all night or are you going to try and help?’
The ex-marine’s training came to the fore. Intelligence gathering.
Specify target. Focus on the key data.
‘What do we know about the planet?’ asked the Doctor.
That it’s meant to be a paradise,’ replied Kendle.
‘But why do we think that?’
Kendle nodded at the direction of the journal. ‘Because Guillan came here and described it.’
The Doctor nodded and flicked through a few more pages.
‘He certainly did – in great detail. Reckoned himself a bit of a poet, did old Guillan. Shame he wasn’t. It’s like reading Hamlet before my final edit. . . Now, the thing he keeps going on about is balance.’
‘Balance?’
The Doctor pointed out a few paragraphs on the page he had reached.
‘Here – “every element of the ecosystem is in balance”, you see. . .
and then he goes on to list in what ways. I think your man Guillan was a bit of a tree-hugger. All this yin and yang stuff going on.’
‘So what are you saying? That those creatures are part of this balance? That every now and again the locals start turning into monsters and it’s all part of the cycle of nature on this planet?’ Kendle didn’t sound at all convinced.
The Doctor shook his head. ‘No, I’m not saying that at all. It doesn’t fit. There’s something else.’ He flipped further into the journal, scanning the pages at incredible speed, until he reached the end. ‘Hang on. . . what’s this. . . ’ he muttered, reading the final entry again.
Kendle came closer to look over the Doctor’s shoulder.
And now we must leave this heavenly paradise, and take away with us our human and ancient imperfections. Faced with such beauty we have no choice but to accept our uncleanliness and return to the harsh realities of our own filthy lives.