Doctor Who_ The Price of Paradise.
Colin Brake.
It was another perfect day in paradise. Sister Serenta could feel the warm golden sand between her toes as she walked barefoot along the beach, her moccasins in her hand. Saxik, the Fire Lord, was high in the sky, making the waves shimmer as they rolled gently on to the sh.o.r.e, sending bubbling sheets of sparkling water dancing over her feet. A gentle breeze cooled her brow, tempering the heat. Half a dozen cream-coloured sea birds were whirling in the sky. Serenta thought they looked as if they were playing some kind of game, chasing each other, zooming high and low and then floating without effort on the hot thermal currents. Sometimes, when she had been younger, Serenta had wondered how it would feel to fly like a bird, but now she was almost an adult she knew how silly that idea was.
She glanced down at the wicker basket she was carrying. A few juicy red glasn.o.berries rolled around at the bottom, but only a handful. She knew she should have had a full basket by now. Laylora provides, she thought to herself with a smile, but we still have to do our bit.
She started back into the forest to find the others. Her brother, Purin, and his friend Aerack were digging a new killing pit the animal traps the Tribe of the Three Valleys used to catch wild pigs. Serenta was meant to be helping them by weaving a cover for the pit from vines and leaves, but she"d got bored and had decided to go and find them something to eat instead.
1.As she walked back through the trees she could feel herself tensing up. The forest was quite dense here and the thick canopy of leaves cast deep shadows. Despite the afternoon heat she started to shiver. Something was wrong, she could feel it in her bones; a tangible air of dread. For the first time in her life, Serenta found herself frightened by the forest that she knew so well.
As she approached the place where the boys had been working it seemed to get even darker. She could hear something moving ahead of her, but it wasn"t the sound of digging or voices. If anything it sounded like an animal. Was it a boar? Had one stumbled into the killing pit before it was finished? And, if it had, were Purin and Aerack all right?
Serenta called their names nervously as she got nearer, unable to hide the alarm in her voice. There was no answer. She stopped in her tracks. Something was moving towards her, something large, and it wasn"t her brother or Aerack; it was something much more frightening. Serenta turned and ran, scarcely able to believe her eyes. It couldn"t be. It was impossible. She must have imagined it. But there was no doubting the crashing sounds made by the thing that was now chasing her through the trees. She glanced back over her shoulder and got another fleeting impression of the creature behind her. This was no wild boar; it was a biped like herself, but much larger, hairy and b.e.s.t.i.a.l-looking. Vicious sharp talons at the end of each arm were slicing through the forest like machetes, cutting a direct path through the trees and bushes.
She ran on blindly, fear driving her forward. Her heart felt as if it would burst through her chest at any moment. The undergrowth was ripping at her legs, leaving a mess of b.l.o.o.d.y scratches, but she didn"t let this slow her down. She was nearly back at the beach now, but there was no let-up in the sounds of pursuit.
As her feet began to run on sand rather than earth, she risked another look over her shoulder and paid a terrible price her foot caught on a piece of driftwood and suddenly she was flying through the air. She landed heavily on the beach in a cloud of soft sand. Coughing, she rolled over on to her back and found herself in the shadow of the 2 beast. Staring up at it, she realised that she had been right. All her life Serenta had heard stories of the mythical monsters that were said to appear when her planet was in danger, but she"d always thought they were just tales to scare children. Yet now one of these legendary protectors of Laylora was right here looming over her and blocking out Saxik"s light. Her last thought, as the beast knocked her unconscious, was that nothing would ever be the same again. The Witiku had risen!
3.
"Mercury in the side pocket," announced the Doctor with confidence. Rose just laughed. "You can"t you can"t get near Mercury without going through Jupiter."
The Doctor grinned and wiggled his eyebrows at her before approaching the snooker table to take his shot. Holding the cue behind his back in his best showman style he took careful aim. Thwack!
The cue slid forward and kissed the cue ball, which shot off in the opposite direction, flying away from the ball the Doctor had called. As Rose watched, open-mouthed, the white ball bounced off one cushion, then another, before heading directly towards the brown "Mercury" ball. It completely missed the yellow ball that represented Jupiter. After a display like that, Rose wasn"t surprised when the Mercury ball responded by rolling, ever so gently, into the side pocket that the Doctor had nominated.
"Right just the Earth, then, and you"ll have to concede," said the Doctor, smiling, and took aim again.
The blue-green ball representing Earth was actually a perfect model 5 of the planet. Rose had held it up to the light and seen all the landma.s.ses marked in miniature.
"If I just hit it round about California. . . " The Doctor leaned over the table and lined up his shot. Click! The Earth ball went spinning into the pocket. "Game over! I thought you were meant to be good at this?"
"I am," retorted Rose, annoyed. "But where I come from we play snooker with reds and colours, not planets."
The Doctor grinned his most enthusiastic grin and Rose found it difficult to be cross about losing. They were waiting for the TARDIS navigational systems to reset themselves after a wild and exciting comet chase and, to pa.s.s the time, the Doctor had produced this fold-out snooker set from somewhere.
"Picked this up in the far future," he had explained, as he placed the small-suitcase-sized box on the floor in the console room. "Retrogaming was really big in the fifty-eighth century."
And Rose had watched, amazed, as the Doctor had opened the case, which, impossibly, unfolded itself to become the entire snooker table, the b.a.l.l.s and the cues.
"How does it all fit in that little box?" she had asked. The Doctor had just winked at her. "Hard light compression," was his baffling reply.
"You what?"
"You really don"t want to know."
Rose moved to reset the planets on the table. "Best of three?"
The Doctor shook his head. "That"s enough rest and relaxation, I reckon." He flicked a switch on the table and the entire thing folded back in on itself, returning to its suitcase form.
"Why? Are we there yet?" Rose was deliberately whining, like a back-seat child, while grinning at the same time.
"The TARDIS should have had time to recalibrate by now," the Doctor answered in all seriousness. "So with a bit of luck we"ll be landing soon."
With a sudden burst of energy he was already at the central control 6 console, checking the various readouts and fiddling with switches and levers.
"Where are we going, then?" Rose asked.
"I don"t know actually," the Doctor confessed. "I hooked up your MP3 player to the TARDIS controls and hit Shuffle. We"re either going to find ourselves at a totally random destination. . . "
"Or?"
"Or we end up inside Franz Ferdinand!" The Doctor grinned to show he was joking. "Let"s find out. . . " And he yanked one of the large levers down, sending the TARDIS towards its next port of call. It had been a long night for the Tribe of the Three Valleys, and it looked set to be a long morning too. For hours after the three youths had failed to appear for the evening meal search parties had scoured the forest, looking for them, but eventually it had become too dark and the search had had to be abandoned.
Mother Jaelette washed her face in the stream at the edge of the village and wondered what more they could do. In the hours since dawn they had searched again, but there was still no sign of Aereck, Purin or Serenta. Brother Hugan had taken off for the ancient temple to ask the benevolent living planet to return their lost children, but Jaelette preferred to put her hope in more practical means. Right now it was important that life went on as usual. Panicking was not going to help. Wherever the three teenagers had got to, there had to be a rational explanation for their disappearance. Perhaps something had surprised them at the killing pit and they had escaped into the inland mountains to hide? Jaelette shook her head, causing her pitchblack ponytail to whip her neck. None of the possibilities she thought of seemed to make very much sense.
As she walked back among the tents that made up the village she could see the various members of the tribe going about their morning routines and, for a moment, it almost felt as if the whole thing had been a terrible nightmare. Then Jaelette caught sight of her younger sister, Healis, the mother of two of the missing children, trying not to cry. Jaelette hurried over and put a rea.s.suring arm around her sister, 7 muttering some words of encouragement. Healis buried her head in her sister"s chest and sobbed.
With most of the men away, moving the animals to the winter grazing lands, and most of the elders too ancient to make much sense of anything, Mother Jaelette was effectively the leader of the village. She knew the others would look to her for wisdom, but this time she had no idea what to tell them. All she could hope was that somehow Brother Hugan"s ritual would have the desired effect. Jaelette had precious little time for the witch doctor and his fascination with the old ways, but right now she would be happy to settle for some divine intervention.
In the darkness of deep s.p.a.ce, in an absolute vacuum, very little ever happens. In this particular part of s.p.a.ce, nothing much had moved for thousands of years. Until now. Without any warning, s.p.a.ce and time burped, warped and wibbled, and, where a moment ago there had been nothing, a s.p.a.ceship appeared.
It wasn"t the most exciting-looking deep-s.p.a.ce craft that had ever left a s.p.a.ce dock. Its once-gleaming silver panels were now grimy with s.p.a.ce dust and pocked with more dents than a teenager"s face. Over the years makeshift repairs had changed the original sleek lines of the craft until not even its own designer would have recognised it now. The hypers.p.a.ce engines, salvaged from a wrecked freighter, were bolted on with no regard for aesthetics and an entire section of the hull near the rear had been recycled from a disused navigational beacon.
The SS Humphrey Bogart SS Humphrey Bogart had started life as a rich man"s toy a sleek speedster for nipping around the owner"s home system between the numerous houses he had on different planets. Unfortunately, as is often the case, the man"s fortune had not been entirely the result of honest endeavour, and when the authorities finally caught up with him, the s.p.a.ceship had been one of the first of his a.s.sets to be repossessed. The tax authorities had used it for a while, but then it had been commandeered and pressed into military service in a nasty and protracted s.p.a.ce war. Finally, many years later and almost a wreck, 8 had started life as a rich man"s toy a sleek speedster for nipping around the owner"s home system between the numerous houses he had on different planets. Unfortunately, as is often the case, the man"s fortune had not been entirely the result of honest endeavour, and when the authorities finally caught up with him, the s.p.a.ceship had been one of the first of his a.s.sets to be repossessed. The tax authorities had used it for a while, but then it had been commandeered and pressed into military service in a nasty and protracted s.p.a.ce war. Finally, many years later and almost a wreck, 8 it had come into the possession of its present owner. Professor Petra Shulough, the academic and explorer, had decided that it would be the perfect vehicle for her explorations. In truth, the only perfect thing about it was the price.
Designed originally for a crew of thirty, the manuals claimed that it could fly with a bare minimum manning level of twelve. The professor wasn"t keen on technicalities like safe manning levels. Her crew numbered just four: her captain, Major Kendle, and three youngsters two fresh out of the s.p.a.ce Naval Academy and one bored rich kid with a history of s.p.a.ce-yacht racing and an adrenalin addiction. In s.p.a.ce, as the old saying has it, no one can hear you yawn, thought Trainee Pilot Jonn Hespell as he sat watching the readouts on his screen cycle through yet another automated sequence. Once again the ship"s AI ran the standard scans, testing the results against the incomplete data Professor Shulough had provided. Hespell, a thin, nervous-looking young man with spiky red hair, glanced over at the academic who had recruited him and the rest of the crew, and set them on this apparently endless mission. Shulough must have been the same age as his mother, but with her short white hair and lined face she looked older. Her sharp features were always fixed in an expression without any hint of softness. In the eighteen months he had served on the Humphrey Bogart Humphrey Bogart, Hespell didn"t think he had ever seen her smile.
A flashing green light from his screen caught his eye something new at last! He took in the information and immediately ran a manual check on the data. To his surprise, it tallied. The scans had made a match. Surely this would bring a smile to the professor"s face? He spun around in his seat and cleared his throat to attract her attention.
"Professor?" he began, but he got no further as she was already up and out of her seat.
"You have something?" she demanded, but he didn"t need to answer as she had already started to take in the information on his display. If Hespell had really expected a smile he was to be disappointed. There was barely a shift in the tone of her voice; perhaps just the 9 slightest hint of excitement. "Plot a new course, Mr Hespell. If this scan is right. . . we"re about to finally reach the Paradise Planet!"
Hespell made the adjustments and, with only a little grumbling and complaining, the s.p.a.ceship"s engines responded. The Humphrey Bogart Humphrey Bogart moved forward through the inky depths of s.p.a.ce. Brother Rez and Sister Kaylen knelt quietly in front of the Table of Gifts. The big stone altar was the centrepiece of the huge main chamber of the ancient temple. In front of them the shaman himself was walking back and forth, muttering a ritual chant and scattering jinnen powder on the floor. Kaylen glanced sideways at Rez, catching his eye. She had to bite her lip to stop herself from bursting out laughing, despite the seriousness of the situation. Rez narrowed his eyes, urging her to get a grip. moved forward through the inky depths of s.p.a.ce. Brother Rez and Sister Kaylen knelt quietly in front of the Table of Gifts. The big stone altar was the centrepiece of the huge main chamber of the ancient temple. In front of them the shaman himself was walking back and forth, muttering a ritual chant and scattering jinnen powder on the floor. Kaylen glanced sideways at Rez, catching his eye. She had to bite her lip to stop herself from bursting out laughing, despite the seriousness of the situation. Rez narrowed his eyes, urging her to get a grip.
Kaylen looked at him and smiled. How he had changed since she had found him all those years ago! She had been only a child herself, but she could remember the day they met as clearly as if it were yesterday.
It had been the sound that she heard first. A sharp cracking retort like a ma.s.sive tree being split by a giant"s axe, then a rumble like her father"s snoring but much, much louder. Kaylen, just six years old and bright as a b.u.t.ton, had been on the beach. She was meant to be collecting firewood but was picking up sh.e.l.ls instead. Kaylen remembered hearing a pair of mylan birds calling to each other. Even as a small child, that melodic trilling had always made her heart sing in harmony. She had decided to spend just five more minutes on the sand, even though she knew it meant Mother Jaelette would be cross with her again.
"Everyone has to do their bit," Mother Jaelette used to tell her every morning. "The tribe is your family and everyone has their part to play."
Which meant doing ch.o.r.es: finding firewood, or harvesting the jinnen crop, or sweeping out the tents. Kaylen never really understood why it all involved such hard work. Laylora provided for them, didn"t she? Why did anyone have to do ch.o.r.es? Just ten more minutes, she said 10 to herself, revising her previous promise. And she got comfortable on the warm sand and closed her eyes.
That"s when she heard the sound, ripping the peace of the late afternoon into shreds. At first she couldn"t work out where it was coming from. She sat up, startled. What was it? Was Laylora angry with her for not doing her ch.o.r.es? The noise grew even louder and it seemed to be coming from above. Shielding her eyes from the full glare of Saxik with her arm, Kaylen looked up and was shocked to see a plume of black smoke stretching across the sky, as if someone had scratched a dirty line through the heavens. Something was falling. She followed the smoke with her eyes and saw a dark object at the front of the plume. As she watched, it plummeted into the forest with a final scream of sound and suddenly there was silence. Bravely or stupidly Kaylen decided to investigate rather than get help. As she got closer to the point of impact she found a scene of total devastation. Something had torn through the forest, uprooting trees and scorching vegetation, leaving an ugly scar. Eventually it had torn a groove into the ground itself, a deepening channel that was still smoking as Kaylen gingerly followed it. Finally she reached the object itself.
It was smaller than she"d expected, not much bigger than her father: a metal egg, blackened and burnt after the rapid descent. Kaylen had never seen anything like it before in all her six years. Despite her fears, she crept closer. She was trying to remember the stories that Brother Hugan was always telling the children, about the old days when Laylora"s guardians would stalk the land. Was it possible that the Witiku were born from metal eggs like the one in front of her? Brother Hugan said that the Witiku would return if they were needed. But the Witiku only attacked to protect Laylora, didn"t they? Kaylen was sure she had done nothing to upset her planet. Her mother maybe, but not the planet!
Hardly daring to breathe, Kaylen reached the object. It was steaming hot; the air above it rippled in an intense heat haze. Suddenly there was a hiss of escaping air and a hatch began to open. Kaylen jumped back, alarmed and scared, and for a moment she considered 11 running away. But something stopped her in her tracks. It was a sound from inside the metal egg, a sort of gurgling. Forcing herself to turn back, Kaylen walked right up to the hatch, which had now opened fully, and looked inside. She could see some sort of bed, and strapped securely into it was the thing that was responsible for making the strange new noise. Kaylen could hardly believe her eyes. A moment ago she had been scared to within an inch of her life, but now she felt all that fear melting away and she began to laugh with surprise and delight. The creature inside the egg began to laugh as well, chuckling with pleasure in response to Kaylen"s smiling face. This was no monster from myth and legend; this was a tiny, vulnerable creature that needed her. Small and helpless, with chubby little arms and chubby little legs, it was a baby!
That had been fifteen years ago. Now that baby was glaring at her and asking her to take the shaman"s ritual seriously. Kaylen smiled at the thought of it. Rez had grown into a handsome young man, fit and tanned, and taller than most of the Laylorans he lived among. Kaylen had grown up too; she was now an attractive young woman with a fierce intelligence and a wicked sense of humour. Despite the six-year age gap between them, the Layloran and her stepbrother were very close. It was because of Rez that Kaylen found herself here today, in the ancient temple, trying not to laugh at the shaman. It seemed to Kaylen that the years had not been kind to poor Brother Hugan. When she was a child, she had been terrified of the shaman and everything he stood for, but now all that had changed. He cut a rather sad and pathetic figure, dressed up in his bright robes and his mylan-feather headdress. His face was painted with streaks of colour that were meant to make him look fierce, but to her he simply looked silly. Underneath the carnival costume and the make-up, Brother Hugan was just another old Layloran, one in the twilight years of his life, who had a sad obsession with the way things used to be. Although the modern Laylorans inhabited a tented village, living off the land in harmony with the seasons, their more primitive ancestors had enjoyed a different relationship with the world. The ancients 12 had worshipped Laylora as a G.o.ddess and their religious rites had included blood sacrifice. Brother Hugan spent hours in the ancient temple, studying the old ways, seeking opportunities to revive some of the less objectionable aspects of their practices in accordance with tribal history. It was an uphill battle with the younger generation, though. Kaylen and her contemporaries, although still respectful of the natural order of things, were less inclined to see the planet as a living deity.
Ironically it was Rez, the outsider, who had most time for Brother Hugan and his stories of the old ways. Perhaps it was because, as he grew older, he became more aware of the things that set him apart from the others the differences between his physical form and that of the Laylorans and sought a way to integrate himself more closely with the tribe. So when other young Laylorans poked fun at the shaman and ignored his stories, Brother Rez took it all in. And where Brother Rez went, Sister Kaylen went too. When her niece, nephew and Aerack disappeared, Brother Hugan had announced that they would need to make an offering to Laylora at the ancient temple. Rez had immediately volunteered himself and, of course, his stepsister to a.s.sist in the ritual.
Kaylen looked up and realised with a start that the shaman was walking towards her. She tried to arrange her features into a suitably serious expression but found it a struggle.
"Sister Kaylen, will you a.s.sist me with the jinnera?"
Kaylen nodded and crossed to the fire that was burning in a grate in the corner of the room. A kettle of liquid was bubbling away, suspended from a frame. Kaylen carefully removed the kettle and poured the thick brown liquid into three ancient carved wooden cups. The three of them took a cup each and approached the sacred altar, behind which a statue of a woman an incarnation of Laylora stood. The jinnera, a drink made using the jinnen beans that grew so abundantly in the jungle, had a sharp, slightly bitter taste that was unpleasant at first but quickly became addictive. Kaylen could smell the exotic aroma wafting up from the cup and hoped the bit in the ceremony where they drank it on behalf of Laylora was coming soon. 13 But Brother Hugan seemed to have other ideas. He stepped forward to the altar and placed his cup down between himself and the statue. He nodded at Rez and at Kaylen to do the same. A moment after they had placed their own cups on the altar, the shaman raised his arms high in the air and threw his head back.
"O mighty Laylora, the provider of all, we your humble servants ask for your kindness. . . "
Kaylen closed her eyes this sounded as if it might go on for a long time. And it did. It seemed that Brother Hugan wanted to name-check every fruit, nut and leaf that the generous Laylora had provided for her chosen people. Kaylen opened her eyes to see what was going on and found herself looking down into her cup at the jinnera she desperately wanted to drink. But there was something wrong. The surface of the liquid was vibrating. No not just the liquid; the cup itself was shaking and moving!
"Brother Hugan. . . " she began, but her companions were already aware that something odd was happening.
The very ground itself was rumbling. Suddenly Kaylen found herself staggering as the earth beneath her feet moved, spilling her precious drink. Now the whole temple was shaking and parts of the ancient walls were breaking free and falling all around them. She remembered the stories she had been told as a child, of how Laylora had shaken them out of living in buildings like these to pursue a more nomadic lifestyle.
"What is it?" Rez asked his stepsister, as he tried to pull her a safe distance from the walls, but it was the shaman who answered him.
"It"s Laylora she"s angry with us!" he ventured. At that moment it was easy to believe. Everything was wrong. The temple that had seemed so solid and permanent was shaking like one of their tents in a winter storm. Laylora was a world of peace and limitless bounty why was it turning on them like this? Kaylen could see that Rez was as scared as she was, but Brother Hugan was just angry. And then, as suddenly as it had started, it was all over. The ground beneath their feet felt solid again.
"I don"t understand," she complained. "Why is Laylora angry?"
14.Brother Hugan shook his head. "It"s another sign. Like everything else. That"s why those three youngsters have disappeared. Laylora is angry and we will all perish in her wrath!"
He turned on his heels and stalked off, leaving the ritual unfinished and the spilt jinnera offering pooling on the ground. The mood on the bridge of the s.p.a.ceship was tense, to say the least. The Humphrey Bogart Humphrey Bogart was entering the outer reaches of a solar system but it was not a straightforward approach. In fact it was a veritable minefield. A ma.s.sive cloud of meteorites and planetary debris made an almost impenetrable barrier protecting the five planets closest to the system"s cla.s.s-three star. As soon as it became clear that some very fine piloting would be required if the ship was to pa.s.s through this belt unscathed, young Hespell had relinquished the helm to the captain. Major Kendle was Professor Shulough"s right-hand man. Like the ship, the major had seen action in wartime and bore the physical and mental scars to prove it. He was in his late sixties now, still fit but long since retired from military service. was entering the outer reaches of a solar system but it was not a straightforward approach. In fact it was a veritable minefield. A ma.s.sive cloud of meteorites and planetary debris made an almost impenetrable barrier protecting the five planets closest to the system"s cla.s.s-three star. As soon as it became clear that some very fine piloting would be required if the ship was to pa.s.s through this belt unscathed, young Hespell had relinquished the helm to the captain. Major Kendle was Professor Shulough"s right-hand man. Like the ship, the major had seen action in wartime and bore the physical and mental scars to prove it. He was in his late sixties now, still fit but long since retired from military service.
Hespell looked on in awe as the veteran s.p.a.ce marine steered the ship manually, his eyes fixed on the screen. He knew the older man had been trained to stay cool under fire but this was something else. With a light touch on the navigational controls and hardly looking at the instruments at all, he was displaying the sort of oldfashioned, seat-of-your-pants flying that the academy just couldn"t teach. Kendle had nerves of steel and the reflexes of a panther a winning combination. Nevertheless, Hespell found he had to remind himself to breathe as he watched their slow forward progress.
He looked around the bridge and saw that the rest of the crew were reacting in the same way. At the communications console even Jae Collins, whose perpetual air of boredom always rankled with Hespell, seemed tense. Jae looked about eighteen but was a few years older than that, which made him about the same age as Hespell. However, the two men could not have been more different. Hespell worked hard and obeyed the rules; Jae born to a family of intergalactic lawyers had never had to work for a credit in his life and believed rules were 15 merely there to be broken. Hespell couldn"t quite work out why Jae had volunteered for this mission. Perhaps he had expected it to be more exciting. Well, it was certainly getting exciting now. The final member of the crew sat beside Hespell at the navigational and ship management consoles. Hespell let his gaze linger on Ania Baker for a second and then had to look away quickly, turning red, when she shot a little sideways glance at him. The pretty, pet.i.te brunette with the round, open face looked as fragile as a porcelain doll, but he knew she was a tough cookie underneath. Ania had been a cadet with him at the academy, but he had never managed to speak to her in his five years there. On board the Humphrey Bogart Humphrey Bogart they had finally become friends. Beneath her calm exterior, he was pretty sure, she would be feeling the same tension they all were. All of them with one exception, that is. At the back of the crew, Professor Shulough was leaning against the wall, sipping from a mug of coffee, looking utterly relaxed. It was amazing. Hespell wasn"t sure exactly how long the professor had been searching for this mysterious planet, but he knew it was a matter of years not months. How could she be so cool now that they were on the verge of finding the holy grail she had been searching for all this time? Looking at the professor calmly finishing her drink, the young pilot wondered if she was quite human. they had finally become friends. Beneath her calm exterior, he was pretty sure, she would be feeling the same tension they all were. All of them with one exception, that is. At the back of the crew, Professor Shulough was leaning against the wall, sipping from a mug of coffee, looking utterly relaxed. It was amazing. Hespell wasn"t sure exactly how long the professor had been searching for this mysterious planet, but he knew it was a matter of years not months. How could she be so cool now that they were on the verge of finding the holy grail she had been searching for all this time? Looking at the professor calmly finishing her drink, the young pilot wondered if she was quite human.
"Professor, we"re through!"
Kendle"s speech was a low growl at the best of times, but even Hespell could hear the relief in his voice. On the main screen the third planet of the star system could now be seen in all its glory. And it was glorious a beautiful green-blue gem of a planet. Was this really the fabled Paradise Planet?
Without warning the ship suddenly shook violently. The horizontal became vertical as the ship"s internal gravity generator went off-line. Every console and every instrument fell dark. Screams filled the air as the crew members, none of whom were strapped into their seats, were thrown around the room. Then the s.p.a.cecraft began to spin.
"Are we under attack?"
It was the professor from somewhere over his shoulder. Hespell 16 hoped she"d managed to grab hold of something when whatever it was had hit them.
"Some kind of EMP," came the calming tones of Kendle. An electromagnetic pulse? Hespell was amazed it would have had to be enormously powerful to break through their shields and cause such a total shutdown.
"Electrical power is out. The emergency generators are coming online but we can"t reboot all the systems at the same time."
"Life support?"
"Priority number one. Then defence shields and engines. But we"re caught up in the gravity well of the planet. I can"t maintain this...o...b..t."
"We"ll have to try and land, then. . . "
"It might be a b.u.mpy ride. . . Hold on. . . "
The next few moments were among the most frightening and yet exhilarating that Hespell had ever experienced. In the emergency red lighting that flooded the bridge, the crew responded professionally to the crisis, setting in motion the routines they had practised in every training drill. Each of them had specific crash-landing duties. Even cool Jae Collins seemed scared for once, as he too responded to the emergency. And in the middle of all the activity, there was Major Kendle wrestling with the steering controls, trying to ensure that their descent into the planet"s atmosphere was at a safe angle. A few degrees out and the ship would burn up before it even had a chance to crash.
While the major struggled to save their lives, Hespell set about his own emergency task, which was to launch a distress beacon. If the crash-landing went badly, this might be their only hope of rescue. Battery-powered, it would send out a looped SOS signal into deep s.p.a.ce. As Hespell launched the beacon, he couldn"t help crossing his fingers for luck. He knew they would need it; their search for the Paradise Planet had taken them far from the busy s.p.a.ce lanes and more populated areas of s.p.a.ce. Was anybody likely to hear their cry for help?
17.Leaving Rez at the temple to help clear up after the earth tremor once Brother Hugan had abandoned them, Kaylen hurried back through the forest alone. She wanted to make sure everyone in the village had survived. Having seen the devastation at the temple, she was worried that the tents would have been utterly destroyed. In her haste, she was running without really looking where she was putting her feet. Twigs and vines slapped her legs and face as she hurtled through the forest, but she didn"t let that slow her down. Although she didn"t believe in Brother Hugan"s talk of disaster, she couldn"t help wondering if perhaps the old man was right after all. Perhaps something bad was coming.
Suddenly her foot caught on a root and she found herself flying forward. Kaylen hit the ground awkwardly and winded herself. As she lay on her back for a second, trying to catch her breath, she heard a noise that she had heard just once before. A resounding boom echoed around the sky, sending thousands of birds squawking into the air in panicky flight. She looked up and was not disappointed. It was happening again. . . just like before. Ugly black smoke was scrawled across the sky. Something was coming. Something alien. 18 Rose watched as the Doctor hurried from panel to panel of the TARDIS console, tweaking settings, flicking switches and tapping the odd readout. This was one of her favourite parts of time and s.p.a.ce travel: the last minutes inside the ship before stepping out into. . . who knew what. The past, the future, sideways into another universe every time Rose opened those doors she could be certain that the TARDIS had landed somewhere new, exciting and different. Even the time it had taken them to Clacton. In the winter. Even that had been fun once they had managed to persuade the Italian ice cream man to open up his shop and they"d been able to walk along the beach eating 99s in the persistent drizzle.
Rose wondered idly what might be outside this time when she walked out of the police box doors. Disturbing her reverie, without warning, the TARDIS shuddered and jerked violently, sending her flying. The console room was filled with an urgent screeching alarm Rose couldn"t remember hearing before.
"What is it?" she asked, getting to her feet gingerly, once the worst of the lurching seemed to be over.
"Alarm of some kind," came the answer, as the Doctor"s hands moved with amazing speed over the controls, trying to locate the source. 19 "I sorta knew that," said Rose, "but what kind? Red alert? Mauve? Orange? Is something up with the TARDIS?"
The Doctor shook his head. "No, it"s not one of ours." A quick grin.
"Not this time!" He slammed down a lever and the noise abruptly ceased.
"It"s gone!" Rose observed, but the Doctor was still dancing around the multi-sided control console, deep in concentration.
"I just turned the volume down. Can"t hear yourself think with that going on, can you?"
The Doctor was now looking at the computer screen, on which pages of data were streaming by at an astonishing rate. Rose moved closer but things were, as usual, meaningless to her. Although the TARDIS could translate any spoken or written language for her, it never seemed to want to help her read the Doctor"s peculiar script of curves and circles.
"It"s an intergalactic mayday. . . A star ship is in trouble."
"Can we help?" Rose was sure the Doctor would be able to do something. Like an intergalactic AA man. The thought of the Doctor dressed in a bright yellow jacket made her smile.
"I"m reconnecting the directional controls." Again the Doctor"s hands flashed over the console. "I promised you a magical mystery tour this time. . . and you"re going to get one."
The TARDIS engines shifted into a new gear a sound Rose knew meant that they were about to arrive somewhere.
On the planet"s surface, in the area of Laylora inhabited by the Tribe of the Three Valleys, a sudden wind whipped up from nowhere. The few birds that had returned to the tree tops, having been frightened away by the sonic boom of the crashing s.p.a.ceship, were now spooked for a second time. Accompanied by a tremendous rasping sound, a blue box appeared, faint at first, but rapidly becoming solid. With a final thump, the TARDIS finished its arrival. A moment later the doors opened and Rose appeared, wide-eyed and intrigued to discover where they had landed now.
"Wow!" she gasped, and took a couple of steps forward. 20 The ground was mossy and springy under her feet and the air was slightly sweet. To one side of her, Rose could see a rich green forest disappearing into the distance, where she could faintly make out glorious snow-tipped mountains. In the other direction was an image from every Caribbean holiday brochure that she had ever seen: a perfect desert-island beachfront, consisting of endless white sands and a beautifully inviting turquoise sea. She turned back to shout into the TARDIS interior.
"I think I need my bikini and a beach ball!"
But the Doctor was already stepping through the doors, shrugging into his long brown coat. He quickly locked the doors behind him, preventing any chance of a change of clothes. "h.e.l.lo? Emergency distress call. . . Crashed s.p.a.ceship. . . Any of this sound familiar?" he reminded her.