by Jenny Colgan
*
The Doctor took Clara out into the corridor, and told her to stay where she was. Then he went down to the basement. When he returned, his face was grim, and Clara knew better than to ever ask him about it.
‘Now,’ he said. ‘To business.’
They explored the entire palace, each room more shocking that the one before it. One contained endless boxes of pre-prepared food in cardboard boxes, with a huge hole carved out of it, dirty containers and utensils thrown and scattered about knee-deep, new ones grabbed at will. The smell was unholy. Another was filled with boxes and boxes of seeds, fruit, vegetables, flowers, fertilisers, geodesic domes and water filters, all of it untouched.
There was a room with a weather console, which as far as Clara could see didn’t just tell you the weather; it created it.
One room had a huge loom, which had never been used and was clearly falling apart. There was a thrumming cold-storage facility that contained frozen specimens of animals and plants. In one vast workshop, cannibalised parts of spaceships had been put together – beautifully, intricately – into new, sinister-looking machines. One room was full of old spacesuits from different planets and ages; personal documents tossed in as if a huge trash can; hundreds, thousands of them.
One room had fresh linen, faded now and thick with dust: one had books, a huge library, everything one could ever need in any language, sitting in long, untouched rows except here and there, where one had been dragged out and thrown or despoiled or a batch had been burnt for whatever reason.
At this, the Doctor’s mouth turned into a thin straight line and he turned abruptly and marched back into Etienne’s stateroom. Etienne was typing furiously in the corner, his fleshy mouth pouting, grunting as he heaved himself up. Sweat was dripping from his forehead, and he was drinking something from a long container. The skeletons lined the far wall, blocking his exit. They appeared frozen.
‘You could have built a paradise here,’ said the Doctor furiously. ‘You could have done anything and you have rendered this entire planet a blasted heath.’
Etienne suddenly started to laugh a wheezing laugh. His vast belly heaved and wobbled with the effort. ‘A paradise?’ he roared. ‘Ha! The one thing they are here to prevent. A paradise. Oh, Doctor, my only job is to not long for paradise.’
The Doctor stared at him for a long time, his mind working furiously. ‘Who sent you?’
Etienne shrugged. ‘Can’t remember. It was a lifetime ago. A different life. A lot of these.’ He held up a bottle.
The Doctor strode forward and attempted to read the faded nametag on his filthy shirt.
Etienne laughed in his face. ‘Now you’re getting desperate,’ he said, his breath foul. ‘Doncha wanna know? Oh, I cut them loose. They were no use at all. But you really want what you came here to find? What my job – my job – is to keep hidden? You really want it?’ Etienne stared into the Doctor’s eyes for a long time. ‘No way,’ he said. ‘I can see it. I can see it in your eyes. You’ve been here before. Ha! You do know where you are. Well, well.’
You would have had to have been studying the Doctor’s face at very close quarters just then to see the tiny flash of understanding that passed across it. He immediately straightened up and backed away.
‘Oh, there it is,’ leered Etienne. ‘You do know. Well then. Ha. No point in torturing you. You’re there already. I thought we’d finally passed into myth. Well, well, well. There aren’t many left like you these days.’
‘There aren’t,’ growled the Doctor.
‘Well, why don’t I show the pretty one? That’s why you’ve brought her back, right?’
‘No!’
But Etienne had grabbed another device from the clutter around his chair, a tiny one this time, and pressed a button. Instantly there came the clanging and groaning of an ancient set of chains.
‘Don’t, Etienne,’ said the Doctor, his tone quite different. ‘We’ll go. We’ll turn around and we’ll go. Right now.’
Clara shot round to look at him in amazement.
‘Hang on, where’s the conquering robot-freeing hero now?’ said Etienne, looking amused. ‘Where’s the liberator of this planet, huh? Where’s the person who’s come to tell off naughty Etienne for his naughty behaviour?’
‘Doctor?’ said Clara, puzzled. The rattling noise continued.
‘Leave!’ the Doctor shouted at Clara. ‘Get out! Get out of here!’ He tried to grab the tiny button from Etienne, who raised his eyebrows and, laughing, hurled it in his mouth.
‘Oh, for crying out loud,’ said the Doctor, launching himself at Etienne and trying to pinch his nose. ‘Clara, go!’
But it was too late. Slowly at first, a door in the wall of the house of bones had started to lower itself, drawbridge-style, into the open air. Clara expected of course to see into the dark, cold and storm-ridden night of the Nowhere planet.
Instead, a piercing shaft of glorious sunlight suddenly penetrated the mote-ridden fustiness of the shut-up scarlet room. A draft of fresh, clean, sweet air invaded the space. It was the kind of freshness you get on the first day after a long rainy spell, when it feels as if the earth has been washed clean. It was like waking up on a mountainside, or flying somewhere warm after a long winter.
They heard something else, too, for the first time: the silvering tones of birdsong, the type of spring morning song that makes the heart clench. As the drawbridge drew down inch by inch, tiny wisps of cloud could be seen, floating across a Wedgewood blue sky; the golden light was soft and the sweet wind was scented with lotus flowers and apple. Beneath the birdsong, a fountain could be heard somewhere bubbling away merrily.
‘Clara, ignore it. It’s a force field. You can’t go out there, it’s a trap.’
‘Oh no, there’s no more traps left, mate,’ giggled Etienne. His odd glasses had turned completely black, protecting his eyes, but even wearing them he still kept his gaze averted from the trapdoor. ‘No one gets this far. I can’t believe you missed the crocodile swamp. Anyone who’s got a way off this place generally takes it at the writhing maggots.’
‘Put that thing down,’ said the Doctor. ‘Put it down. I… I beg you.’
‘Well, I would have begged you not to try and cause a robot revolution, but you wouldn’t have listened,’ said Etienne, indistinctly as he continued to crunch through the plastic shell of the remote.
The Doctor turned away from him in disgust and ran towards Clara. She was already walking out of the door into the space beyond as if sleepwalking. Etienne’s barking laughter echoed in the Doctor’s ears, but Clara heard none of it.
*
Outside, the sunlight was golden like honey, the grass lusciously green and thick. They were on a path, looking ahead at a hill at the top of which was an vibrant orchard, with a wrought-iron fence around it. There was a gate, but it was open.
Clara ran towards it at full pelt, light of foot and joyous of heart. Inside were apple trees, but the apples were silver and gold. Their scent filled the air; Clara had never in her life felt such utter thirst, such terrible hunger. She ran, the Doctor arriving behind her, just as she stretched out her hand.
‘Cla—’
The snake in this tree was green.
‘Don’t you see what this is?’
Small, jade-coloured, like a slithering jewel, the snake raised its head. Clara jumped back, but not for long. Her hunger drove her forwards. The Doctor shook his head and grabbed her shoulders. She struggled against him.
‘Why on earth are you taking that form?’ the Doctor shouted towards the snake.
The snake flickered its tongue at him. ‘Hello again,’ it said. ‘Yes, well, rather. I got it from the human. Between that and your documented fondness for the species, I thought it might rather work.’
The Doctor looked wounded. ‘Well, don’t get me wrong, I like them and everything, but I’ve just spent thirty-five years working with the Sculptor Dwarves, and nobody ever mentions that.’
The snake indicated
Clara. ‘Well, anyway, it’s in her head. Got it off the psychic wavelength that’s running those poor robots.’
‘People,’ said the Doctor quickly.
‘Something about… “Sunday school”?’ said the snake. ‘A little church room, a nice lady teacher, the smell of oak polish and the felt-tip colouring on the wall. She loved it.’
It coiled sinuously round a branch, rustling the thick, luxurious leaves.
The Doctor looked at Clara in surprise, then redoubled his grip as she kept trying to pull away from him.
‘Nonetheless,’ said the snake, stretching its neck in the sunlight. ‘It is a rather beguiling look, don’t you think? If only I could smell.’
‘You’re not having her,’ said the Doctor, clinging on to Clara for dear life. She struggled against him, her feet trying to move of their own accord. ‘You’re not.’
The snake shimmered, its scales lost in the light. ‘But would you deny her everything? Come, my daughter. Come, taste it all. Every single thing, every last delight, everything there ever was to know or to understand; the fruit of knowledge, of everything. Doesn’t that sound delicious? You will love it.’
‘It is not what he promises,’ hissed the Doctor in Clara’s ear, but she could not hear him.
‘I want it,’ she said. ‘I am naked without it.’
‘You aren’t naked.’ The Doctor tugged her again, but she didn’t listen to him or even look at him.
‘He doesn’t know everything about you, does he?’ said the snake. ‘He doesn’t really know you at all, does he? Doesn’t know how you bleed for him. But what would he do for you? Does he bleed for you, pretty maid?’
‘Clara,’ the Doctor said. He glared at the snake, whose mouth was open, as if it were laughing. In desperation, the Doctor spun Clara round to face him, till she was forced to look at him, although her eyes strayed over his shoulder, her feet continued to move.
‘I want it,’ she said.
‘But you have to work for it,’ said the Doctor in anguish. ‘You have to earn it.’
She shook her head. ‘I want it.’
‘You hate snakes, remember?’
Her eyes were glassy as she stared at him in confusion. It was as if she barely recognised him.
The snake reared and hissed crossly.
‘Argh,’ said the Doctor.
He held her by the shoulders, her eyes still desperately searching out the apples, her feet still leading her closer and closer to the orchard. The scent on the air now was completely soporific, lulling. It was very hard to think clearly.
With a huge effort, he spun her round to face him again, pushing them both fiercely back from the fence they were drifting towards, their feet not obeying their heads. With a massive effort of will, the Doctor shoved them away from the sharp iron posts so hard he tore both his hands in the process
‘I have it,’ he said, fast and intent. ‘You know I do. I have it already. You can have it. You can have it. Just…’ He glanced at the snake. ‘Just, please. Take it from me.’
‘He doesn’t even care for you!’ screamed the snake. ‘He lets you bleed and you don’t even know it! Will he bleed for you?’
The Doctor lifted his injured hands instinctively, and let the wounds show.
She hadn’t even known his blood was red.
‘Always,’ he said simply.
They both watched as the drops fell, vivid on the bright green grass, forming a ‘C’.
The second the first drop hit the ground, she snapped back to him.
‘Stop that,’ she said, looking directly at him at last. ‘Stop it immediately.’
The Doctor reached out, gently, his fingers weaving into her dark hair. He had forgotten how small she was; she barely came up to his chest. ‘Look at me,’ he ordered sternly
Reluctantly Clara focused her eyes on his.
‘It is what you want, I promise.’
This was not quite a lie. He would show her the temptation and fruits of that knowledge; everything he had. But he would also show her what it cost and what it really meant and how, afterwards, the rest of her life would be like a dark, spoiled fruit. She could not do this. She was not capable; it would kill her. Or worse.
Etienne had been quite wrong. He had never tasted the fruit. He had never had to.
Her focus wavered.
‘Clara! Look at me. Look at me. You have to let me in. You have to let me. You have to say yes.’
Finally, slowly, she blinked her assent and breathed ‘Yes’, and he pushed his fingers a little more firmly on the side of her head. A golden light started to flow between them as he moulded their selves together, concentrating on pushing to her an awareness of what was there, what he lived with, what the cost would be; how she must resist the temptation; she must.
Just as he was concentrating on the flow from his brain to hers, however, he stopped, and his eyes flicked open suddenly in surprise as, suddenly, he felt her: felt her self-knowledge buried so deeply underneath, so deep in her subconscious; but that showed what the snake had said was true.
She remembered so little, but it was there, deep in the bone; her frustration and her fear and her pain at being around him, all of it buried so far beneath the surface that she did not understand it herself.
Abruptly, shocked and startled, he jumped back as if electrified, and their connection instantly ceased, far too sharply. Clara crumpled underneath him like a paper doll.
The Doctor stared down at her, horrified, then instantly made use of the situation, grabbing her up in his arms and running for all his life, the sunlight softly glinting in his hair, the deep, corrupt, sweet scent of apples in the air, the shrieking, furious scream of the bright green snake. He tore back to the house of skulls, his heart in his mouth, his shock and incredible regret cluttering up his mind.
‘Shut the door!’ he yelled at Etienne as he entered.
But Etienne simply laughed and said, ‘I thought I wasn’t in charge any more,’ and did not move his vast limbs away from where he was reprogramming the skeletons.
‘Shut it!’ The deadly sunlight was still streaming in. The Doctor look around for a hanging, a coat, anything, that could cover it, as Clara started to stir in his arms. The light lit up every dark corridor, every grim corner flushing out its secrets to the bright golden glorious flood of tempting rays.
‘There it is!’ said Etienne, raising his fingers from the screen. ‘The robots are all fixed. I am a genius. Guards! Take them!’
There was a rattling noise. The tallest of the skeletons, the one they had first seen on the cliff’s edge, came marching into the room, followed by another, then another, then another. The Doctor stood up, carefully. Etienne laughed in triumph.
But instead of seizing the Doctor and Clara, the skeleton did something quite different: he led them up to the door’s edge, and slowly laid himself down. Etienne pressed a button on the console and the skeleton spasmed as the white light flashed up and down, but it did not stop what it was doing. Another lay down on top of him, then another and another even as they were shocked, again and again, and Etienne screamed at them, until gradually they filled up the space, every chink, and the light died down and down until it vanished completely.
Clara lay on the floor, her eyes flickering. Eventually she came to, blinking. She looked around the room. ‘What happened here?’ she asked, gazing at the pile of bones.
Etienne and the Doctor stared at her. Then Etienne turned his attention to the Doctor.
‘Those worthless bits of bone,’ he growled. ‘You utter idiot.’
‘They’re not worthless bits of bone!’ said the Doctor furiously. ‘Do you know they even try and warn people who land here? Leave them messages?’
Etienne shrugged. ‘They’re robots.’
‘You tell yourself that.’
Etienne shook his head. ‘But you came back to this place.’
The Doctor stared at the floor. ‘I didn’t know what it was then, either,’ he said. ‘It wasn’t prot
ected.’
‘Chuh.’ Etienne stood up, wheezing slightly. He was not tall. ‘How do you stop it?’ he asked, suddenly serious. ‘How do you stop all that knowledge and that power from making you take over the galaxy? From making you destroy it all? From making you an eater of worlds? How do you stop it?’
The Doctor was still staring quietly at the ground. ‘I work at it. Very, very hard. All the time. Every day. And I don’t always.’
Etienne gave that maddening grin again. ‘But you told the Shadow Proclamation it was here?’
The Doctor nodded.
‘And then they “hired” me. Or they thought they did. To protect everybody else.’
The Doctor nodded again, very, very wearily.
*
Etienne watched him as he moved things into the room; much of the packet food, the water filter, every bit of computer equipment.
‘What are you doing, man?’ he said, nervous. ‘You guys are leaving, right? I mean, you’ll need me, right? You’ll never get back alone, you’ll need me to guide you – there’s stuff out there you haven’t even seen yet. There’s stuff out there I don’t even remember making. You gotta watch for that zombie ravine, it’s hideous. They’ve got rakes for hands. Boy, I was out of it that night.’
At that, the Doctor marched forward without saying a word, took every handset and controller he could find, and crushed them under the heel of his boot. Then he went back to working quietly, saying nothing.
Etienne tried to leave the room, but more skeletons came to block his way. Sweating heavily, he turned round to try and reach his remote control, only to remember that the Doctor had it and it was now sticking out of his top pocket. His manifest unfitness made any attempt to launch himself at the Doctor or Clara laughably feeble, the heavy atmosphere in the room growing increasingly unpleasant. He gave up, and started to whine again.
‘They’re not real people! I didn’t know they were! I just thought—’
The Doctor set down a final pile of blankets, apparently satisfied that was enough. ‘You know,’ he said, in a voice of great weariness and near infinite sorrow. ‘You know I cannot let you free. To sit here, and wait for the deaths of others, and use their remains for your own ends… You have proven yourself too dangerous to be let loose on the universe.’