by Unknown
'There are things worse than death,' said the Ice Lord.
'Really? Name one.'
'Dishonour.'
The Doctor threw back his head and laughed.
'I knew you were going to say that,' he chuckled. 'I love it when Ice Warriors talk about honour and dishonour. It's all so terribly serious and profound. My old buddy Warlord Azylax was forever banging on about it, all the time. I would just roll my eyes. You Ice Warriors can be so pompous on the subject.'
'There is no Warlord Azylax,' said Ixyldir.
'No, unlucky for me,' the Doctor agreed. He sighed.
'No, there isn't. At least, there isn't going to be for about another 9,000 years. I realise that now. I got my Galactic Migration Eras mixed up. I didn't know if I was coming or going. Or if you were coming or going.
Anyway, my timing's bad, and that sucks for me, because there isn't a single Ice Warrior on this world or any other who can vouch for my credentials.' He looked squarely at Ixyldir. 'But you will, by the time we're done here,' he said, and winked. 'I promise. You will have acquired respect for me. As a friend, or as a foe. Which one of those it turns out to be depends entirely on you, Lord Ixyldir of the Tanssor clan.'
'By the time we are done here,' replied the Ice Lord,
'this world will be an ice-locked haven, and you will be a headless corpse rotting in one of the vile meat vats in this facility. You do not impress me, or scare me, cold blue star.'
'Then let's talk about dishonour some more,'
suggested the Doctor. 'I mean, it is such a popular topic with your kind. You take it so seriously, yet it is so malleable to you.'
'Malleable?' echoed Ixyldir.
'It means pliable or easy to reshape.'
'I know what it means.'
The Doctor looked at the other Ice Warriors.
'Honour is a code you live by... until it becomes inconvenient,' he said.
Ssord raised his axe.
'Stop!' the Ice Lord ordered.
'You see?' said the Doctor. 'Your man here was going to chop down an unarmed prisoner, just because that unarmed prisoner happened to say something he didn't like. How is that the action of an honour-bound warrior?'
'We are principled,' said Ixyldir. 'We are also pragmatic.'
'Yes, you are,' the Doctor agreed. 'But isn't it about time you started to balance those aspects of your culture? You're searching for a new home because Mars has gone.'
'Our home world, along with all the planets in our solar system, has been rendered uninhabitable by the maturing expansion phase of our star.'
'The Morphans of Earth are in the same boat, so to speak,' said the Doctor. ' And they got here first. And this world is more like their home world than yours.'
'It is still generally compatible with our needs,' said the Ice Lord.
'So you're just going to take their planet from them and wipe them out? How is that honourable?'
Ixyldir growled something, a hint of anger under the surface. 'Our primary requirement is the establishment of a new home world for our clan so that we may begin rebuilding our civilisation,' he said. 'We have no particular issue with the human refugees. No malice. It is simply a competition for resources.'
'Tell them that,' said the Doctor. 'You're killing them.'
'At the moment,' replied Ixyldir, 'it appears to be a two-way process.' He showed the display of the communicator pad to the Doctor.
The Doctor leaned forward, frowning deeply as he made sense of the data he was being shown. 'You deployed one of your ships into a low atmospheric holding position. You're... firing at surface targets.
Ixyldir, you've committed forces to an open ground offensive!'
'And why might I have done that, cold blue star?'
The Doctor blinked. 'I don't... Wait, how can that be? You're fighting something. You're fighting something that's fighting back!'
'Your emotional nuance is interesting,' said Ixyldir.
'I am no expert in mammalian microexpression, but your surprise seems quite genuine. I imagine, however, that this is because you are a trained spy and infiltration agent. I offer you one last opportunity to cease your constant disinformation. I agree to make your death rapid and painless. Tell me the location of your ship.'
'My ship?'
'Where is it concealed? How many more military operatives are you carrying aboard it?'
'Wait,' said the Doctor. 'Wait, wait, wait, wait, waitaminute!' He started to pace, disconcerted. 'You said you were maintaining a watch on the planet.
You've been monitoring the human population on Hereafter since you arrived ten years ago?'
'Yes.'
'Logging them all individually by their heatprints?'
'Yes.'
'Roughly speaking, in that time, what has the population of Hereafter been, Lord Ixyldir?'
Ixyldir paused, considering the pros and cons of tendering the information. Finally, he answered:
'Combined, the three human settlements represents a global population of around 19,000.'
It was the Doctor's turn to pause. His mind was racing. 'But just recently,' he continued, 'the nature of the struggle has changed? It's forced you out into the open?'
'Yes.'
'You've detected new arrivals, like me and my friends?' asked the Doctor.
'Yes,' growled Ixyldir, growing impatient.
'And you distinguish between the pre-existing population and the new arrivals by heatprints?'
'Heatprints do not lie,' said the Ice Lord.
The Doctor sighed. 'Bear with me for one moment more, Lord Ixyldir,' he said. 'We're about to have a really crucial exchange of information. Everything that happens from now may hinge upon it. I'll start by telling you something, in the spirit of a free and frank debate. I arrived here, in my ship, with two companions. That's it. A total of three new arrivals. We got here yesterday.'
Ixyldir turned his head slowly and looked at Ssord.
Then he looked back at the Doctor.
'Lord Ixyldir,' said the Doctor. 'According to your scans, how many new heatprints have appeared in addition to the existing human population here?'
The Ice Lord permitted himself a glacial pause before replying. 'One hundred and fifty,' he replied.
'Down here!' Amy yelled.
She was leading the way, her duffel coat flying out behind her. Samewell and Arabel were running to keep up.
'They're coming after us, Amy!' Bel cried.
Amy looked back. Thirty-five metres behind them, two Ice Warriors had appeared on a gantry platform and were following the three humans onto the grilled shipskin bridge that arched across a vast turbine chamber. In the past five minutes, Amy and her companions had been chased through four large compartments just like it. Each time they had emerged onto a platform or bridge at a different level. Each time, they believed, briefly, that they might have finally shaken off their pursuers.
But each time, the Ice Warriors had appeared, relentlessly searching and hounding.
The bridge they were currently crossing spanned a large chamber at a particularly high level. Several other walkways criss-crossed the chamber at different levels below them. Far below the bridges, at the bottom of the yawning drop, there was a huge cavity that looked like the bowl of an active volcano. Molten fire seethed and roiled down there, an abyssal well of flames. They could feel the heat rising through the space of the compartment. High overhead, unfurled like sails, titanic thermal vents were arranged to conduct and direct the heat.
'We can't run for ever!' Samewell yelled.
'Watch me!' Amy cried.
Arabel let out a shriek of despair. 'Look!' she yelled.
Amy skidded to a halt. They were about halfway across the long, railed walkway. Three more Ice Warriors had just appeared at the other end of the span.
Ice Warriors were closing in from both sides.
They were trapped in the middle of the bridge.
There was nowhere to go.
'What do we do?' aske
d Samewell.
'We surrender, don't we?' Arabel said.
'No!' said Amy firmly. 'They won't take us alive.'
She looked around. She looked up. She grabbed the guard rail, leaned out, and looked down. 'We jump,' she decided.
'Are you mad?' asked Samewell.
'To kill ourselves so they can't capture us?' asked Arabel.
'No!' replied Amy. 'What do you take me for? I'm not going to stupid well kill myself! We jump down onto that!'
She pointed.
The closest of the bridge spans beneath them was only a few metres below. They were almost directly above the point where two bridges intersected.
'We'd never make it!' objected Arabel. 'We'll jump and miss!'
'We won't miss!' replied Amy. She started to hoist herself up over the rail.
'It's too far!' Samewell cried.
Amy got her heels on the edge of the walkway, holding the handrail against the small of her back. She stared down. It did look far too far. It looked ridiculously too far. It was like jumping off a tightrope and hoping to land on another tightrope.
'We can do it!' she insisted.
She looked at them. Arabel and Samewell were clutching each other and staring at her in dread.
'Come on!' Amy yelled. 'Look how close they're getting!'
Bel and Samewell looked around. The two Ice Warriors behind them were approaching rapidly. The three coming the other way weren't so close, but there wasn't a lot in it.
'Any better ideas?' Amy yelled. 'No? Then come on!
Now!'
Uttering moans of reluctance and fear, the two Morphans scrambled over the rail next to her.
'It is so high, I fear I shall faint,' said Bel.
'Try your best not to,' said Amy. 'OK. OK. I'll go first. I'll show you how it's done. OK.'
Perched, they looked at her.
'OK, I'm going,' said Amy. Her hands didn't seem to want to let the handrail go. It really was a very, very long way down. What had she been thinking? She couldn't make that. It was crazy. It was crazy, crazy talk. Even if she did jump, and didn't miss the bridge, she'd break a leg, or a neck, or something else that she was fairly unwilling to damage.
'A-Amy?' Bel said. Her voice was trembling. 'Amy, are we going to do this?'
'Yes. We are. Hang on. OK. OK, I'm... OK. Ready?
I'm ready. OK. Here we go.' Amy swallowed hard.
'Actually,' she said, 'I think it might be a bit too far after all.'
She looked around at Bel and Samewell, in time to see an Ice Warrior reaching a huge, green pincer-hand out to grab them.
'Geronimo!' she yelled.
And jumped.
'Rory?' Vesta asked. 'Rory, what are you doing?'
Rory didn't reply immediately. He was moving around the assembly hall, shifting benches and knocking on wooden wall panels.
'Not green?' he asked. 'The thing you saw? In the woods? "It"? It wasn't big and green?'
'It was a monster,' Vesta said. 'A big monster with claws and red eyes, but it was nothing at all like the green thing you described.'
Rory tapped his way along a panelled wall, listening.
'It's fair to say,' he said, 'that I haven't been entirely up to speed on this situation since I arrived. But now I really don't know what's going on. I mean, I don't have a clue. Is it possible that we're in the middle of some sort of war that we didn't previously know about?'
'I don't know, Rory,' said Vesta. Every flash and boom from outside made her jump and look towards the windows. The night sky was underlit orange with flame from burning woods. The noises of battle were getting closer.
'What are you doing?' she asked again.
'I'm looking for...' Rory began. He dropped his hands and stood back from the beam he'd been examining. He shook his head. 'I don't know what I'm looking for,' he said. 'The Doctor turned this room into some kind of communications station. A receiver. I just thought that... if he could turn it on from his end, I should be able to do the same here. There should be controls, hidden somewhere, I suppose. Perhaps boarded up or panelled over because the Morphans didn't know what they were for. I thought I might be able to find them.'
Vesta shrugged. 'Guide only knows,' she said. She cleared her throat. 'Rory,' she said. 'I think that I want to go and hide in the barns with the others. I think that's the safest place.'
He looked at her. 'Yes, that makes sense,' he said.
'You should do that. Do you want me to take you there?'
'No, I can find my way. Will you be all right?'
'Yes, I...' Rory's voice trailed off. He looked at her with such intent, she laughed and shook her head in confusion.
'What?' she asked.
'I said I was looking for the controls, and you said...?'
'I don't know, Rory!' she said.
'You said, "Guide only knows.'" He grinned. 'I'm not thinking straight. I wanted to try and get this place running, so that once I had got the Guide, I had a way of sending it to the Doctor. But I can kill two birds with one stone. Your Guide Emanual will tell me how to operate this station. It stands to reason.'
He turned and walked towards the rear doors of the assembly hall. Vesta ran after him, her skirts gathered up.
'Are you really going in?' she asked. 'Into the Incrypt?'
'Yes,' he replied.
'Even though you are not one of the Beside council, and permission was expressly denied to you?'
Still walking, Rory gestured towards the hall windows and the rumbling flash of the onslaught.
'Hello?' he said. 'Bigger picture?'
'But—' she began.
'Vesta, I think that the solution to all the many and troubling problems plaguing us right now are in that room. The Doctor thinks so too. So I'd better get on and find them, because the alternative isn't really very pretty.'
Rory reached the double doors. Old Winnowner, the keeper of the key, had padlocked them shut. He started to rattle and push at them, but they were very solidly made and securely fastened.
He put his shoulder against them, and rammed.
'Ow,' he said, rubbing his shoulder. 'That's not going to work. I need something else. An axe, or a crowbar.'
He turned from the doors and found himself nose to nose with the business end of Jack Duggat's hoe.
'Whoa!' he said, recoiling.
'You was trying to break into the Incrypt,' said Jack, holding the farming implement like a rifle with a fixed bayonet.
'It's really important I get in there,' said Rory.
'It really is, Jack!' Vesta agreed.
'It is Cat A vital you do not,' replied Jack emphatically. 'Look what I found!' he called out over his shoulder. 'Just as you feared.'
Old Winnowner came in through the main doors of the hall behind him. She was out of breath from hurrying through the snow. 'I see,' she said.
'Good thing you sent me here direct,' said Jack, not relaxing his grip on the hoe.
'Vesta Flurrish, I'm surprised at you,' said Old Winnowner as she hobbled over to them. 'Betraying everything we've worked for.'
'Give him the key and let him within, Winnowner Cropper,' said Vesta firmly. 'Can you not see he's a friend?'
'I have no proof of that,' Old Winnowner replied.
'Then can you not see what is happening outside?'
asked Vesta. 'Fire from out of the sky! Falling stars!
The world's end! A ruin and disaster the like of which we have not even imagined! Will you just watch it happen or will you try to stop it?'
'It is being stopped,' said the old woman. 'That is all there is to it. It is in Guide's hands. Now, Jack, bring them. We'll take them to the barn with us.'
'I'm not going anywhere!' cried Rory.
'Really?' asked Jack.
Rory backed off. 'Put like that, and with such a large hoe involved in your answer, perhaps I am,' he agreed.
Jack and the old woman marched them out of the assembly. The cold clear night outside was bright orange from the flames.
The ship, still hovering, was continuing its merciless prosecution of ground targets in the hills. They could smell smoke from the burning trees.
In the town yard, the snow was trampled. The fires were casting long, twisting shadows across the broken snow. The sounds of battle were closer. It appeared that some of the town's outbuildings down by the heathouses were now on fire.
'Quickly, get them to the barns,' Winnowner said.
'I think you're placing excessive faith in the protective properties of agricultural storage,' said Rory.
Vesta yelped.
On the far side of the town yard, two Ice Warriors had appeared. Both were brandishing swords. Ignoring the four humans outside the assembly hall, they strode across the yard as though they were pursuing an unseen adversary through the lanes of the houses opposite. They disappeared from view behind the granary.
'Oh, Guide!' said Vesta. 'Were they those things?'
'Ice Warriors,' said Rory. He could see the fear on the faces of the Morphans. Even Winnowner's resolve had been checked by a glimpse of the towering aliens.
'Are you going to start believing me?' Rory asked.
Winnowner didn't answer. There was a sudden and terrible mauling sound from the direction of the granary. It was the noise of bodies slamming into wooden wall boards, of timber splintering, of armour denting.
'Get them back inside, Jack,' said Winnowner.
'Hurry now.'
Before they could turn, something appeared on the roof of the granary. It had leapt up there in a bound, like a big cat. It prowled down the thick slump of snow on the building's roof, moving on all fours, and then sprang down into the yard and started to come directly towards them with a lithe, loping stride.
Its eyes flashed red in the firelight.
Rory, Vesta, Winnowner and Jack all backed away until they felt the assembly doors behind them.
'Oh, Guide! Oh, Guide!' Vesta babbled, stricken with fear. 'That's it. That's what I saw in the woods.
That's It!'
Amy landed, on her feet, in the middle of the bridge walkway. She made a resounding clang that shivered the metal work of the entire structure. Slowly, she opened her eyes, waiting to see if there were any clues like, for example, excruciating pain, that could tell her if she'd broken anything significant or killed herself.