by Gary Russell
1
Then You Turn Away
Nyssa felt the warmth of the sun on her cheeks and rolled on to her back, distractedly waving her arm across her face. As if brushing away cobwebs. Outside, the birds were singing and a slight and pleasant breeze washed over her, entering from the tiny window above the bed-head.
She opened her tired eyes, feeling the softness of the grey silk nightdress she wore. At the foot of the chintz bedspread sat a row of her stuffed toys, guarding her during the night, as always. She smiled down at Big Bear, top guardian and leader of her pack.
‘Morning, BeeBee,’ she said. ‘Thank you for another safe night.’
‘Always our pleasure, Miss Nyssa,’ Big Bear responded, with a salute.
‘I think today, BeeBee, I shall go and visit Melkur again. My mother-to-be took her role as its guardian as seriously as you take the way you guard me - I can do no more than that.’
Nyssa climbed out of her bed, washed and dressed, adjusted her hair and, with a final look at her toys, left her room.
She took the yellow-stone staircase down to the ground floor, smiling at a couple of fosters and one of the proctors who was taking a message or delivery of some sort to the consuls.
She followed him at the last moment, hoping for a peek at her dear father and her mother-to-be at work. Sneaking in behind the proctor, she hovered at the back of the grand meeting-room, with its raised throne at one end encased in a glass chamber with gilded edges. In front of the throne room were some steps, and on either side of those a small array of electronic power banks. Further into the room was a large table, at which the consuls were seated.
‘Nyssa, my daughter,’ Tremas beckoned her over, ‘you know you shouldn’t be here. We have work to do.’
‘Now then, Consul Tremas,’ said an elderly woman to his right, Consul Katura, ‘it is always a delight to see your beautiful daughter amongst us.’
‘Indeed, she keeps us feeling young,’ said the eldest consul,
- Seron, their leader.
‘I’m sorry, Father. Consuls. I just wanted to say good morning to you all.’
Consul Kassia, Nyssa’s mother-to-be, smiled at her. She was a lot younger than Tremas, barely old enough to be Nyssa’s, or anyone’s, natural mother, and was definitely the most beautiful lady in the Traken Union. ‘Have you visited poor Melkur this morning, my dear?’
Nyssa shook her head. ‘Not yet, but I shall do so now.’
A younger male consul, Luvic, laughed not unkindly.
‘Consul Kassia, if Nyssa serves our famous statue as lovingly as you have done over the years, I swear one day the statue will walk again and sit with her upon that throne. And with the Keeper’s blessing, they shall be married.’
The other consuls laughed as well.
The proctor whom Nyssa had followed approached the table.
‘My Lords, I have an important message for you all.’
Nyssa looked at him. He was not anyone she recognised.
He was older than most proctors, with a deeply lined face that seemed built to wear a perpetual smile, yet was sad now. His voice was rich, melancholic, not at all appropriate for the consul chamber.
‘Speak, proctor,’ said a gentle but forceful voice, aged but distinct, from the other end of the room. The Keeper of Traken, society’s elder statesman and benefactor, had materialised within his glass-enclosed throne room.
The consuls bowed and Nyssa curtsied to him.
‘A man walks amongst us, Lords. Beware of him. He brings death and destruction for you all. No one upon Traken this day shall be spared his touch. His interference. His meddling.’
For some reason, Nyssa was not surprised to see the array of toys from her bed standing in the doorway behind the doom-saying proctor, all of them eagerly staring up at him. And standing to one side of the Keeper’s throne room, unremarked upon by everyone, was Melkur, the calcified immobile statue that normally stood in the fosters’ grounds, outside the citadel, awaiting her ministrations.
Why was it here? How was it here? What relevance did this apparition of evil, solidified and made impotent by the tranquillity and purity of the Traken Union, have now? Was this the evil the proctor spoke of?
‘Each and everyone within this room, bar Nyssa, will be dead soon, all directly due to the machinations of this one person.
He calls himself the Doctor. He will bring with him a devastation unrecorded in the galaxies, unleashing powers and a maleficence undreamt of.
‘Only young Nyssa will survive. A testament to everything you have created, you have recorded and built. This Doctor will take her away from here - and although he will be her saviour before Traken is consumed by the universal night, it is important that she questions his motives. She will believe him to be a hero but she is misguided. Use what time is left to you, Keeper, consuls, to educate her in the ways of evil.’
The proctor indicated the Melkur statue. ‘This is not the evil you seek, consuls, although it houses an evil that, ironically, will be a partial saviour to one other of you.
Concentrate your forthcoming witch-hunt not on that lifeless object but on the beguiling man who will present himself.’ He looked down at Nyssa. ‘Remember me, Nyssa of Traken. We shall meet again.’
‘Nyssa?’ said a new, urgent voice in her ear. But there was no one there.
She turned around, to locate the voice.
Instead, she saw the proctor fade away. Her toys burst into momentary flames, writhing and screaming in agony before being extinguished. In the far corner the Melkur statue splintered into a million pieces, shattering the ornate glasswork surrounding the Keeper’s throne.
He himself had vanished, and the consuls were skeletons in torn rags, grouped around the table. As one they turned towards her, the last vestiges of flesh dropping off their yellowing bones, on to the floor. Then, one by one, they too caught alight and disintegrated to ashes before her eyes.
‘Save me, daughter!’ The skeleton that had been her father, Consul Tremas, was dragging itself across the floor to where the Melkur had stood. Nyssa, only you can save me now,’ it croaked, before splintering into fragmented bones that then flared and faded to ashes.
‘Nyssa?’ It was the same voice.
‘Father?’ Nyssa whispered.
‘No, Nyssa, it’s me...’
And Nyssa closed her eyes to shut out the terrible sight of her family and friends, dead.
She slumped to the floor as flames from the skeletons and toys took hold of draperies and wooden doors and furniture. In an unnaturally rapid blur, the room was filled with flames and smoke, and through the windows Nyssa could see that the whole of the Traken Court was ablaze. The screams of the dying echoed around her, then the ceiling vanished, revealing stars.
And within the starscape a cloud of blackness was getting nearer, swallowing up the other planets in the union, sucking the whole system into its light-less maw.
Nyssa gave a final scream as the blackness absorbed the flames and then the room. She tried to scream once more but realised that the blackness had engulfed her, drawing the breath from within her, forbidding her to scream.
‘Nyssa!’ The stranger’s voice was urgent this time.
And Nyssa woke, sobbing.
The Doctor was at her side in a second, holding her, comforting her. Yet she found herself pushing him away.
Irrationally and inexplicably, she did not want to be near him.
She lashed out, her flailing hands forcing him back.
She could see the concern on his face, but was it real?
She thought of Tegan, of how her will had been subverted by that awful Mara creature the others had told her about.
Tegan had told her later that she feared that ‘unpleasant aspects of my psyche’ had been revealed. Was this what had happened to Nyssa? She knew she had been dreaming. Had a nightmare, in fact. But the Doctor himself once said that dreams tell people things about themselves.
What had this nightmare meant? She did
n’t know, but she needed to be alone and not with the Doctor.
‘I need air,’ she said suddenly, her throat dry, as if... as if she’d been near fire.
The Doctor watched as Nyssa almost ran out of the room, and frowned. How unlike her.
He looked at the floor - at the sleeping forms of Commander Oakwood and CPO Townsend.
Through the doorway came Desorgher and Dieter.
‘We’ve recced around, Doctor, but nothing,’ said Desorgher.
‘No way out.’
‘Where was Nyssa going?’ frowned Dieter. ‘She looked a bit upset.’
‘A bad dream, I think,’ the Doctor offered, and added that if she couldn’t go far, she probably couldn’t get into trouble and would be back soon.
Townsend stirred, and smiled up at the Doctor. ‘Hi. How’s things?’
The Doctor helped her up. ‘Any dreams, pleasant or otherwise?’
Sarah Townsend frowned as she tried to recall, then brushed herself down. ‘Nope, not that I can remember.’
‘Some drugs trip,’ Desorgher said. ‘Why’d they do it, Doc?’
Both the Doctor and Dieter started to answer, but Dieter graciously gave way to the Doctor as it was apparent that Desorgher had been addressing him.
‘I don’t know, Mr Desorgher. Apart from Nyssa’s nightmare, and some weird ones of my own that I can’t bring to mind right now, nothing much seems to have happened.’
Townsend was bringing the now-awake Commander Oakwood up to speed. He chipped in at the end of the Doctor’s answer.
‘Someone drugged us, Doctor. I imagine there was a reason for it.’
The Doctor shrugged. ‘Normally I’d agree, Commander. But none of us seem to have any ill effects.’
Dieter frowned. ‘You know, there is something wrong, but...’
‘Yes?’ The Doctor was beside her in an instant, willing her to think. ‘What do you think it might be?’
Dieter opened her mouth as if to answer, then stopped. ‘I’m sorry. I don’t know. It’s at the back of my mind.’
‘Look around you, Dieter.’ The Doctor eased her around 360
degrees. ‘Anything changed? Anything weird since we arrived last night?’
The others were also looking about them. No one could put their finger on anything, but gradually they all accepted that something was definitely amiss.
‘The more I think about this, the more convinced I am that we’re overlooking something,’ Dieter said.
The Doctor crossed to one of the slabs bearing the body of a Dymovan. What do you make of this?’ he asked her.
Dieter began inspecting the body and after a couple of moments she gasped.
‘What is it?’ Oakwood hurried to her side.
‘You suspected, didn’t you?’ Dieter was looking at the Doctor.
He nodded.
‘But this might be something to do with what you’re feeling, Doctor,’ she said. ‘Maybe we knew this last night but have forgotten it with the passage of time. The drugs might have made us forget we’d already discovered this.’
‘What!’ Oakwood looked at the two scientists. ‘Would one of you mind telling me...’
Dieter sighed. ‘This Dymovan is not, as we assumed last night, dead. In fact he’s very much alive - there’s a faint pulse, he’s breathing once every three minutes and is giving out a minute amount of body heat. But it’s like he’s asleep.’
‘Or comatose,’ chipped in the Doctor. ‘And look at his eyes.’
Dieter did so, pulling the lids back. The Dymovan’s eyes were rolling, the only movement he seemed to be making.
‘He’s dreaming. Deep asleep he may be, but his REM count is perfectly normal - which is, of course, completely abnormal for someone in his condition.’
‘Abnormal for us, maybe,’ said the Doctor. ‘But I wonder if this is his natural state.’
‘You mean, they never wake up, Doctor? That’s ridiculous.’
‘Oh really, Commander? Why?’ asked Dieter. ‘Dymok seems to lack any real signs of industrial revolution, no cities, no wildlife, no changeable weather. The only thing this planet offers is this pyramid and a race of people who are in a coma, but dreaming. Who knows what their mental powers may be? Advanced telepaths are not uncommon, Commander, even this far out in space. This could be how they live their lives. They are born, nurtured somewhere, brought out here and dream.’
The Doctor stared down at the dreaming Dymovan. ‘
―Dream a little dream of me‖,’ he quoted. ‘Perhaps we are the dream.’
‘You what?’ Oakwood was getting irritable again, a sure sign he didn’t understand what was going on.
‘There’s a philosophy, Commander,’ the Doctor said quietly,
‘that suggests that we are all nothing but someone’s dream.’
He smiled. ‘Of course there are similar philosophies... that the universe is one man’s fish-tank, for example, or that we are just biogenic algorithms in a vast organic computer, or that to some greater force the universe only exists for the blink of an eye.’
‘Cheers, Doc,’ muttered Desorgher. ‘I needed to lower my self-esteem.’
The Doctor knelt down beside the Dymovan again. ‘Never fear, Mr Desorgher. There’s always someone worse off than you.’
He looked over at the young telemetrist. ‘Would you nip out and see if Nyssa’s back yet?’
Desorgher turned to the giant doorway, then looked back, frowning.
‘Sorry, Doctor. Who?’
‘Nyssa.’
Dieter joined in. ‘Who or what is a Nyssa?’
The Doctor stood slowly. Oakwood seemed to be staring at his compatriots oddly. ‘Nyssa, the Doctor’s friend. What are you talking about, woman?’
CPO Townsend reached out to touch Oakwood’s arm.
‘Commander? What are you talking about?’
Oakwood turned to look at the Doctor, who just shrugged at the others’ loss of memory and said ‘How very interesting.’
Little Boy Il had suddenly become a very scary place.
Adric had awoken in the cabin that Lieutenant Paladopous had assigned to him, feeling refreshed but oddly anxious.
One of the things he had learnt during his time with Tegan and Nyssa was the different ways people slept. The two girls often talked about their dreams. Adric didn’t talk about his.
He couldn’t, simply because he didn’t dream. Or, if he did, he never remembered. The Doctor suggested it was something to do with the healing factor in his Alzarian genetic make-up -
the slightest injury, and Adric’s body healed within about an hour, completely. A bone break mended within about two.
Therefore, if dreams were how the human mind and subconscious relaxed, or whatever human minds needed to do, Adric’s didn’t seem to require this relaxation. Instead, he slept soundly every night, and woke rested and always instantly bright and cheerful. This was yet another thing the Doctor and the girls said they found annoying - though Adric never knew why. After all, better to be happy and bouncing first thing than wandering around moping and saying ‘I’d like to wake up first, if you don’t mind,’ as they did.
The old Doctor was never tired or irritable in the morning.
So, feeling enthusiastic and energetic, Adric made his way back to the bridge, to see if there had been any word from the away team.
He was a little surprised to see so few people around, however. Surely, even at this early hour Paladopous had some crew working. But apart from a couple of technicians who said ‘Hi’ and explained they were now on their way to bed after a long night shift, he saw no one.
He was even more surprised as he jauntily sauntered on to the bridge, one hand in his pocket and the other holding an apple he was noisily munching that he’d... purloined… on his travels, to discover a virtually empty command area.
Three technicians were at their posts, and Lieutenant Paladopous was sitting in Commander Oakwood’s chair.
‘Hello,’ Adric said, grinning. ‘Trying
it out for size?’
Everyone stopped to look at him. Slowly Paladopous swivelled round, staring intently
Adric instinctively took a step back, and stopped eating.
‘Niki? What’s wrong?’
Paladopous stood up, glancing quickly at the others, then, leaning his head slightly forward, gave him the same look the Doctor always gave him when he suspected Adric had broken something, reset something or not put the TARDIS toilet seat down.
The lieutenant scratched the side of his head and then spoke, slowly and clearly, as if addressing an imbecile.
‘Who the hell are you?’
2
She’s Leaving
Nyssa felt the warmth of the sun on her cheeks and rolled on to her back, distractedly waving her arm across her face. As if brushing away cobwebs. Outside, the birds were singing and a slight and pleasant breeze washed over her, entering from the tiny window above the bed-head.
She opened her tired eyes, feeling the softness of the grey silk nightdress she wore. At the foot of the chintz bedspread sat a row of her stuffed toys, guarding her during the night, as always. She smiled down at Big Bear, top guardian and leader of her pack.
‘Morning, BeeBee,’ she said. ‘Thank you for another safe night. I think today I shall go and visit Melkur again. My mother-to-be takes her role as its guardian as seriously as you take the way you guard me - I can do no more than that.’
Nyssa climbed out of bed, washed and dressed, adjusted her hair and, with a final look at her toys, left her room.
She took the yellow-stone staircase down to the ground floor, surprised not to see at least a couple of fosters or one of the proctors taking a message or delivery of some sort to the consuls. Indeed, the whole court seemed to be empty. She crossed the garden where Melkur stood, moss growing among its carved joints, brushwood and a few dead flowers at its feet, and hurried into the consul chamber.
Yesterday, Melkur had been garnished with brand-new blueshells and yellow cupbells. So why this morning did it look as if the garden had not been attended for some months? Where were the fosters?