by Nick Walters
Peri leapt to her feet, staggering as the energy roared around her, and ran towards the TARDIS. As she ran the door opened and the Doctor stepped out. He saw Peri and made for her, struggling against the energy storm.
Somehow they managed to scramble into the TARDIS.
Peri stood gasping in the console room. It seemed almost gloomy after the dazzling display outside.
‘Oh Doctor, thank God you...’ she began, but her voice tailed off when she saw what was standing on the other side of the console room, regarding her with yellow-green eyes.
‘Doctor, what the hell is that thing doing in here?’
‘Don’t worry, Peri - Veek won’t harm you, will you, Veek?’
Veek glared at him, snarled, and gave a curt nod. Peri saw with disgust that she was naked and plastered with blood.
‘Doctor, that thing almost killed me. Almost killed you! How can you say it won’t harm me?’
The Doctor put his hands on her shoulders, trying to calm her. ‘Peri, Veek’s on our side. She killed Kikker - saved my life. All she wants to do is go home.’
‘Yeah, well, I know how she feels.’ Peri shook him off, stomping away across the console room. She felt shaken and angry and couldn’t understand why the Doctor had let Veek on board after all she and her kind had done. She didn’t even want to understand. ‘I’m gonna have a bath and clean up, and then you can take me right back to Earth. I’ve had enough of all this crap!’
She didn’t look back to see the Doctor’s expression, because she could picture it clearly enough. She’d offended him, hurt him probably - but right now she couldn’t care less.
Veek watched the human woman go through the interior door, and briefly wondered how large the TARDIS was.
Perhaps the blue box contained a whole world.
‘A spirited creature,’ she said. ‘A worthy companion.’
‘I’ll miss her,’ said the Doctor. ‘And I haven’t really got to know her yet.’ He turned to Veek, his tone hardening. ‘But I understand how she feels. Humans will never be able to forgive your kind, Veek. Do you understand? Do you even care?’
Veek shifted uncomfortably. ‘Humans are our prey. You will never change that.’
The Doctor turned away in disgust. ‘Those cuts and scratches must be smarting. There’s a medical kit around here somewhere but, you know, for the life of me I can’t quite remember where it is at the moment.’
Veek didn’t care. She relished the pain, it told her that she was alive. The only hunter left alive.
The Doctor activated the scanner screen again. It showed a square of white light. The Doctor twisted a control and the image changed, to show the other cavern. Spheres of energy raced around it, illuminating the bodies of the hunters that littered the cavern floor.
The Doctor closed the screen.
‘They’re all dead,’ he whispered. ‘All your fellow hunters, Veek. Do you care about that?’
If they hadn’t embarked upon the Great Mission, they would still be alive, hunting in the fields and forests of Valeth Skettra. ‘Yes, Doctor, I do care. But I doubt that will make you feel any better about me.’
His glass-like human eyes blinked. Again she saw the power behind them. But now she felt sure that physical strength was always superior to mental prowess.
‘And now for your side of the bargain, Doctor,’ said Veek, walking around the console to tower over the human. ‘We have found your friend - now take me back to Valeth Skettra!’
The Doctor stared at her.
Peri struggled out of the grimy uniform, bundled it up and hurled it into the furthest corner of her room. The boots followed, bouncing with a hollow clump off the roundelled walls. She looked down at her body. It was grubby and muddy and her legs were covered with bruises. And she stank. Inside, she felt knocked hollow. She tried to remember how many times her life had been in danger since arriving on the Eknuri planetoid. The skyboat - the Valethske ship - the shaft - the Tree
- Kikker - the energy storm - it all whirled around inside her mind, a jumble of images, sounds, sensations and emotions. But she had survived. She wanted to cry with relief, leap around her room and yell for the sheer joy of life.
But she was way, way too tired. And hungry. Thoughts of coffee and doughnuts filled her head. She grabbed a towel, wrapped it around herself and headed for the bathroom, which was more often than not the third door down from hers. But when she swung it open she found herself staring at the entrance lobby to the wardrobe. She tried the next door along. Potting shed. Then the next. Room full of bicycles.
Cursing under her breath, she returned to her room and scrubbed off as much of the muck as she could with the white fluffy towel. When she’d finished, it was no longer white nor particularly fluffy so she hurled it over her discarded slave-clothes, hiding them from view. She found some perfume in her dresser and sprayed herself liberally, then rooted out trainers, blue jeans and a black T-shirt.
Beneath her anger and tiredness, guilt lurked. She went over her outburst in the console room, wincing as she remembered how she’d yelled at the Doctor. She knew he would never let anything dangerous into the TARDIS, not deliberately anyway. Maybe Veek had had a change of heart, and was now a good Valethske - no, she couldn’t convince herself of that, however hard she tried. But she was convinced that the Doctor would never put her in danger.
She sighed. She was gonna have to apologise. He had just saved her life - again! For God’s sake! Biting her lip, she ran back to the console room.
She saw Veek standing over the Doctor, blue-white teeth bared. ‘What’s going on?’
‘Veek wants me to take her home,’ said the Doctor. ‘I have no choice. We made a bargain.’
‘To hell with your bargain!’ cried Peri. ‘I want that creature out of here.’
The Doctor glared at her. ‘Peri, don’t make things more difficult than they already are.’
Peri folded her arms. ‘No way. It’s her or me.’
She could feel Veek’s glare on her, but she held the Doctor’s gaze. His face was impassive, and her heart missed a beat.
Surely he wouldn’t...? Not after all he’d done to save her.
At last the Doctor turned away and stared down at the console. His voice rang out clearly over the subliminal hum of the console room.
‘Put those claws away, Veek. Violence won’t work, you’ve learned that much.’
Veek hissed and leaned over the Doctor. Peri saw saliva bubbling on her lips.
She looked around for a weapon, then remembered that there weren’t any in the TARDIS.
The Doctor lifted his head and met Veek’s snarling face. His eyebrows were raised, his jaw jutting. ‘We’ve been through all this before. You can’t force me to do anything.’ And then, to Peri’s surprise, he smiled and clapped Veek on the shoulders.
‘You have a ship, have you not? And presumably all those poor Vale Guards are still on board waiting to hear the outcome of the Great Mission?’
Veek stepped back, brushing the Doctor’s hands away from her. ‘So?’
The Doctor’s voice rose with enthusiasm, ‘So what do you say I go to your ship, plot a course for Valeth Skettra and make a few adjustments? Soup up the engines a bit, so it can go faster than just a bit above light-speed. You’ll be home in no time! Well?’
Veek folded her arms. ‘That was not our bargain.’
‘Our bargain was that I would help you get home,’ said the Doctor sternly. ‘I have every intention of honouring that bargain but I can’t take you back to Valeth Skettra in the TARDIS. You’re the only half-decent Valethske as far as I know. Your fellows will skin Peri and me alive.’
Veek stepped back from the Doctor. ‘Very well, very well. I accept.’ She licked her lips. ‘Anyway, it would be foolish to leave such a fine ship on this world.’
Peri realised she’d been holding her breath and let out a long sigh.
The Doctor visibly sagged with relief. ‘Now let’s see what’s been going on outside.’ He operated the scanner.
Peri pouted at Veek and went to stand beside her, wanting to show the hunter she wasn’t afraid of her.
Veek turned, her nose wrinkling. ‘That odour - it is overwhelming!’ she gasped, fixing Peri with a malevolent yellow stare.
Peri wished she’d brought the perfume bottle with her so she could spray it right in Veek’s face.
On the screen, Peri was pleased to see a cavern full of dead Valethske, residual white energy crackling around their bodies. So Aline had succeeded. Good for her - but at what cost?
She felt the Doctor’s hand on her shoulder. ‘I wonder if you could tell me what caused all this?’
‘It was Aline,’ Peri stammered. ‘At least, I think. She said she had a plan. Doctor, I’m sorry about -’
‘No time for that now!’ said the Doctor. ‘Tell me exactly what happened in there.’
He wouldn’t even let her apologise, but Peri was too tired to be irritated by this. She told him what had happened to Aline, or as much as she understood.
As she spoke the Doctor’s face became shadowed with sorrow. ‘The energy - it is dissipating,’ said Veek.
Peri looked at the scanner screen. The residual energy had now all fizzled out, and the cavern was back to its normal murky fish-tank green. The Doctor flicked a switch, and the image changed to show the plasma strand, also back to what passed for its normal.
‘Oh no. Aline,’ breathed the Doctor, and in a flurry of movement opened the doors and fled out into the golden void.
Peri looked at Veek, who stared back at Peri. There was no way she was ever gonna trust those feral yellow eyes. Peri ran from the console room, after the Doctor.
He was making straight for the plasma strand.
‘Doctor!’ called Peri. ‘What are you doing?’
She stopped dead in her tracks as the Doctor walked right up to the strand and stepped into it, vanishing without rippling the golden surface, just as Aline had done.
Peri walked up to the strand, tears springing into her eyes.
This was too much. Why couldn’t he just leave it?
Then just as she was about to drop to the invisible floor, the Doctor stepped from the strand, holding a pale, emaciated body. Peri gasped. It was Aline, she assumed, but the woman was barely recognisable. Her clothes were gone and her pale skin was stretched tightly over her body. Most of her white hair had fallen out, and the skin on her face was cracked like a dried-up river bed.
It was plain to see that she was dead.
The Doctor, face aghast with sadness, stumbled forwards and dropped to his knees, setting Aline’s body gently down on the invisible floor.
Peri stood over him. ‘Doctor? Are you all right?’
She was alarmed to see tears running down his flushed face. He wouldn’t look up at her and was trying to wipe his face surreptitiously with the sleeve of his coat.
‘It should have been me.’ he mumbled. ‘I could have withstood the forces within the strand.’
Peri knelt down before him. ‘Hey, don’t blame yourself. It was her choice.’
The Doctor shook his head. ‘Not entirely. The shape of her life determined her decision.’ He looked up at Peri, his eyes shining. ‘She deluded herself into thinking it was her destiny. Well, unfortunately, it was in a way... her final destiny.’
Peri looked down at the wizened figure, outlined in a shimmering aura of gold. ‘No wonder she didn’t tell me. I would have tried to stop her.’ She remembered the energy storm. ‘Hey, how come I wasn’t hurt while all the Valethske were killed?’
‘Aline again,’ said the Doctor.’ She guided the energy around you. It was that still point the TARDIS homed in on.
She saved your life.’
Peri felt tears coming to her eyes. ‘And I never even got to say thank you.’
She heard the Doctor’s voice trembling with suppressed emotion. ‘I told her there’s no such thing as destiny. No such thing as fate. We make our own choices. There are only the patterns we see in the universe around us.’
Only the patterns we see. His words echoed in Peri’s mind.
We make our own choices.
She moved closer to the Doctor and hugged him to her.
Chapter Twenty-Six
Ashes
The surface of the planet was knee-deep in fine, grey ash that lifted with the wind, rising into the sky like swarms of insects. The sun was a white blob hanging behind this stifling grey veil, giving scant heat and only a diffuse, baleful light. It was a monochrome landscape, funereal and desolate.
Smoke still rose in columns from the scorched ground. The only point of colour was the small blue box that stood embedded, its roof developing a pyramid of the wind-blown ashes.
Two figures stood a little way off from the blue box, a man and a girl, their arms around each other’s waists, their heads inclined in an aspect of mourning at a point in the grey-white surface in front of them.
In the distance, through the grey haze, a mountain which wasn’t a mountain stretched upwards into the sky.
Later, when the ineffectual sun had risen to its zenith, Peri stepped out of the TARDIS once more, cursing as some of the ash piled against the door collapsed and fell into the interior of the time-ship. Kicking it aside, she walked out on to the surface of the Garden. She was wearing wellingtons and a thick parka, the furred hood encircling her face, goggles over her eyes to keep out the drifting flakes.
She waded up and down through the ash in front of the TARDIS. She was angry, annoyed, on tenterhooks. She was waiting for the Doctor.
She was going to have to think of another name for this planet now Hard to believe it had ever been the Garden. What should it be? Cinder-world? But then she changed her mind.
It should always be called the Garden, as a testament to its former beauty and an indictment of what the Valethske had done.
The Valethske. Peri stopped pacing and gazed over at the rearing hulk of the Valethske ship. Covered in ash, it looked even more mountainous than ever. The Doctor had told her he wasn’t going to be long. That was three hours ago.
Time enough for Peri to find the bathroom, have a good long soak, a pot of coffee and a whole plate of doughnuts. Time enough for her to become really, really worried about him.
To take her mind off things, she tried to locate the spot where they’d buried Aline. Might be a good idea to mark it with a flag or something. She struck out through the ash in the direction that seemed right. They’d buried her in a coffin the Doctor had produced, to Peri’s alarm, from the room next to hers.
There was nothing to mark where Aline now lay, nothing but a featureless expanse of grey ash, and Peri felt that was wrong.
But would the shifting ashes support a flagpole? Surely if the Doctor could conjure up a coffin from out of nowhere he could equally easily produce a headstone or something. Peri stomped around the ash, realising with a sinking heart that she had absolutely no idea where Aline lay.
She looked over at the Valethske ship. ‘Oh come on, Doctor. Why couldn’t you have just left the damn things alone?’
It wasn’t her fault that she couldn’t see the good side of the Valethske; there just wasn’t a good side to them. They were evil. That was that.
At last Peri made out two figures in the grey murk, making their way back to the TARDIS. As they got nearer Peri could see that it was the Doctor and Veek. Veek had cleaned up her injuries and donned a new uniform. The Doctor had on a pair of green wellies that clashed horribly with his stripy trousers, and instead of goggles had his hat jammed well down over his fair hair.
Peri waited, arms folded, as they came up to her. The Doctor’s mood had brightened - always did when he had something practical to do - and he was chatting to Veek as if they were old buddies.
He smiled as he saw Peri, as if to say, there you are, told you I was never in any danger.
Veek gave Peri a curt nod. Peri scowled back at her.
‘Sorry I was so long, Peri - there was a lot of work to do on the guida
nce systems, and plotting a course back to Valeth Skettra was a bit more tricky than I thought it would be.’
‘You have done me a great service, Doctor,’ said Veek. She looked embarrassed. ‘Thank you.’
She held out her red-furred hand, ears twitching.
The Doctor took it in both of his, his pale flesh totally enclosing the red fur. They shook.
‘Veek intends to return home and denounce the Great Mission, tell the Great Vale that the Gods are dead.’
‘Great. I’m so pleased for you,’ said Peri.
The Doctor frowned. ‘So you should be. Veek is a rarity among such a savage pack species. She can actually think for herself. Could even be persuaded to take up cricket.’
‘Are you gonna stop hunting humans for food?’ said Peri to the Valethske hunter. ‘Make that small step towards decency?’
Veek shook her head, and growled at Peri. ‘No. That is our way.’ Peri glared at the Doctor. ‘Let’s get the hell out of here.’
‘Yes, well, I think it’s high time we said our goodbyes.
Goodbye, Veek - and good luck.’
Peri turned away as they shook hands again, and only began to relax when she heard Veek’s footsteps swishing away through the ash.
Then she stood in silence, looking at the devastated landscape. If she closed her eyes she could see the Garden in all its colours. That was the only place it would ever exist now, in her memory.
‘You know,’ said the Doctor, ‘there may be some hope for the Valethske if there are more of them like Veek.’
‘So what? I don’t care. I hope they die out.’
The Doctor looked offended. ‘There’s good in everyone, Peri.’
Peri couldn’t believe she was hearing this. ‘You know sometimes I - I just don’t get you, Doctor! Look what they’ve done to this planet! And remember Athon, Taiana, Lornay? All those other poor people on that ship?’
‘And Captain Melrose. Don’t forget him. Must be out here somewhere, what’s left of him...’