Cole Steve

Doctor Who: The Knight, The Fool and The Dead

Steve Cole

DOCTOR WHO: THE KNIGHT, THE FOOL AND THE DEAD

TIME LORD VICTORIOUS

Contents

Prologue

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

First Interlude

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Second Interlude

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Third Interlude

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

About the Author

Steve Cole is an editor and children’s author whose sales exceed three million copies. His hugely successful Astrosaurs young fiction series has been a UK top-ten children’s bestseller. His several original Doctor Who novels have also been bestsellers.

For Christine Gordon

With Twitter thanks to Natalie Robyn – Molto bene!

‘Death is a great evil and the gods have judged it so: for they choose not to die.’

— Aristotle, after Sappho

Prologue

The skies over Destran were horrid with phantoms, wheeling in the wind. Estinee watched their wild dance of dark and colour from her bedroom window, clutching to her chest the doll she’d grown out of, long ago. She couldn’t make sense of the shifting patterns; if they were monsters come to claim the living, or spirits of the new dead taking flight from their bodies. The visions spun and shifted like scraps in a hurricane, but the dread they brought was deep and slow.

Though she wanted to, Estinee couldn’t stop watching the haunted sky. If she did, she knew her eyes would be drawn to whatever was causing the screams in the cropfields. And if she didn’t look then she would never remember. It wouldn’t have to be real. She could close her eyes, of course. But Estinee knew that if she did, she couldn’t pretend she wasn’t alone behind the locked door, in darkness.

It was already growing so dark.

Estinee couldn’t take it in. Minutes ago this had been a day like any other: Mother and Father and all their workers, out in the fields for the harvest. Then the skies darkened and the sun was swallowed, just as in the old stories. Stories she’d been told since she was tiny, but had never believed till now.

The Kotturuh. They had come.

Shock had been squeezing her voice box shut, but now words and tears came together. ‘It’s the end of the world,’ Estinee whispered aloud.

‘There’s no need for fear, child.’ Her mother’s voice from the talk-circle in the wall, quiet and calming. ‘The Kotturuh bring meaning to Destran.’

‘Mother!’ The spell of the skies was broken; Estinee jerked and ran to the white mesh disc in the wall. ‘Meaning? How can you say that? Where are you? I’ve been so scared, what’s happening, where’s Father—?’

Her mother didn’t seem to hear. ‘Death is the Kotturuh’s gift.’

‘We must hide from the Kotturuh, Mother.’ Estinee clutched the doll tighter, but it was cold and hard against her chest. ‘Please, come to me?’

‘I am coming to you,’ said her mother slowly. ‘I am nearly here.’

There was the loudest scream from outside the window. Don’t look, Estinee told herself. If you look, it’s real. It’ll always be real.

But now she couldn’t help but look. Because the scream was her father’s. Her father was outside beneath the storm-grey panic of the sky, running through sticks of cinder where the cropfield had stood minutes before.

‘Father!’ She dropped the doll, threw open the window, shouted to him.

He was looking wildly behind him. Estinee caught a glimpse of something – a quivering shape of shadow reaching out to him – before she closed her eyes. Only a glimpse, but that was enough.

Now it’s real.

The shape vanished, a shadow blown away on the wind, and her father’s final scream died as quickly. Estinee turned from the window, faced her bedroom door.

It swung open. Her mother was there. Her smooth, rosy skin tightened and split, her body grew hunched and shrivelled, her rust-red hair turned white – all in seconds. Estinee opened her mouth to scream but her mother shook her head, put a finger to emaciated lips.

‘The harvesters are harvested.’ Her voice was like the creak of an old door. ‘You shall know forty summers and no more, my love. Time enough …’

Mother had known so many summers. Her bleached skeleton dropped to its knees and she pitched forward.

Everything is real.

Estinee wanted to scream but the sound wouldn’t come. There had been something in the shadows behind her mother. Something making her talk, so it could get closer. A veiled creature, thick tentacle legs blooming from its midriff, the flesh purple-black like bruises. More horrible than any of the pictures in her storybooks.

Kotturuh.

It stared at her through a thick veil and Estinee felt a buzzing pressure inside her head. Overwhelmed, she fell back against the bed. One hand closed on the doll.

The visitor’s voice was like the writhing of worms in the soil: ‘We are here for you, child.’

Estinee turned and tried to scramble through the window. Something touched the back of her leg. The Kotturuh’s six fingers, grey diamonds, were pressed to her skin. A feeling like burning flared through the flesh. Estinee pulled away and felt she must be trailing fire.

As she fell from the window she imagined that she must look like a comet blazing to earth, like a shooting star.

But there was no one on the farm left alive to see her as she struck the ground and the Kotturuh drew their veil about her.

Chapter One

‘Oh, yes!’ The Doctor grinned like a wolf as he strolled around the Tombs of the Ended, this monument to the dead of Andalia. ‘Oh, this is brilliant. Just what the Doctor ordered.’

It was cold in the halls of shadowed marble, and the Doctor was glad of his long brown coat with its deep, deep pockets. As a rule of thumb, tombs weren’t a laughing matter, but this one, rather like the Andalians themselves, was something special.

He saw an Andalian male, jade-skinned and painfully thin, sitting cross-legged before an enormous statue of an Andalian seated in the same position – like the tiniest Russian doll placed beside the largest. Both seemed carved from translucent stone. Through panes of cracked and coloured glass, streams of sunlight stirred luminous veins in both figures.

‘Hello!’ the Doctor called cheerily. ‘Unbelievable, isn’t it! Only cemetery on the whole planet and just fifty bodies interred here since records began. Talk about room in the tomb. You Andalians, you’re so alive …’

‘Please!’ The Andalian turned to him, beak raised in gloomy dignity. ‘I am in contemplation.’

‘Oh.’ The Doctor pulled a face. ‘Sorry to interrupt. Thought you were just admiring the statue. I’m contemplating, myself. Sort of.’

‘I see. Well—’

‘Only, life got out of hand a bit. On Mars. Course, Mars won’t exist for a few billion years …’

The Andalian smiled as one would at a dim-witted child. ‘I suppose you don’t know our customs, seeing as you’re from off-world.’

‘The past is a foreign country,’ the Doctor agreed, ‘and I’ve come a long way back. Further back than I’m meant to, but, well. I’m getting away from …’

She enters the dark house. Closes the door. Snow falling. You’re already walking away. You hear the blast—

‘You’re getting away from the demonstration?’ the Andalian suggested.

‘I’m getting away from the old haunts. From fixed points in time. The universe is a better place here and now. So many races like you Andalians – just brimming over with life! Whatever happens, you pretty much can’t die, even if you …’ He closed his eyes.

You hear the blast. You turn. No light at the window. All silent on Davies Street.

‘… even if you wanted to.’ He frowned. ‘Sorry, what demonstration?’

‘You’re right not to go. It’s all scare-stories.’ As the Andalian shook his head crossly he looked a little like an aged chicken. ‘I have lived and learned for thirty thousand years, my mothers for three times that. The eldest of us have watched the birthing of suns and shall live to see them sputter out.’ He nodded, turned back to the statue. ‘Scare-stories. Just scare-stories.’

‘Yeah, I know a few of those …’ The Doctor was eager to talk some more, but he knew how it was: even with all eternity to live through, time could be hard to come by. So with a wave of farewell he turned, stuck his hands in his pockets and strode towards the exit. His trainers squeaked on the stone floor. Squeak! Squeak! That helped dispel the gloom gathering over him – as did the intense sunlight as he stepped outside.

‘Whoa!’ He shielded his eyes. ‘And to think they call it the Dark Times …’

Andalia baked slowly in the glare of two suns, one red and one almost blue: different indifferent eyes in the sky, unblinking through a swarming veil of flies. The midge-like creatures were everywhere; huge leaves of burnished copper rose here and there and hummed in unearthly tones to attract them. The Andalians only had to open their beaks and snap at the air to snaffle the mini-beasts down their throats.

‘Eating on the fly,’ the Doctor murmured, as a couple blew into his mouth; they tasted like burnt cinnamon as he stuck out his tongue to release them.

Beyond the copper leaves, the buildings that lined the plaza matched the people who used them: tall, weatherworn and ancient. Each sprouted towers and turrets festooned with metal spires and shields that sparked like flashbulbs (sunlight conductors, the Doctor supposed, converting it into energy). The walls of these skinny castles wore pale glazed tiles like armour, chipped and cracked. A strange grey moss flowered from the fault-lines, and the broad slabs of the walkway fruited with it too.

The Doctor watched the Andalians pitter-pat in their long, skinny stride, dressed in silk sarongs of different faded hues, gulping habitually at the black-buzzing air as they went. Others rode in long, rusting cars that looked old as the encircling desert: harpooned by sparking aerials, the vehicles hovered low to the ground on grumbling motors, spluttering dust as they parked alongside the vast plaza and disgorged their drivers.

‘Here for the demonstration,’ the Doctor supposed, and waved at a frail couple hobbling past. ‘Excuse me! What are we demonstrating against?’

‘We’re watching a demonstration,’ one of the women explained. ‘If you want to go on, you should watch it too.’

‘Excuse me?’ The Doctor frowned. ‘Some people do say I go on a bit at times, but …’

The women were already pressing on, puffing for breath. The Doctor sensed a heightened feeling of purpose in the crowd as if this hurrying was quite out of the usual. There was tension too, unfamiliar and untoward, simmering in the plaza beneath the hum of the fly-swarm. Everyone was making for a large, rusting structure, squatting like a giant iron cockroach, far out of keeping with the rest of this world.

‘Take a peep at an actual Dark Times spacecraft? Don’t mind if I do.’ Smiling to himself, the Doctor went with the flow. The gravity was light and the Doctor felt tall as he walked, blowing cinnamon flies from his lips. He would’ve been the first to admit – well, the third or fourth, anyway – that he didn’t know so much about the Dark Times: those millennia that came creeping out of the endless night as the first stars switched on in the universe. Most of what he remembered came from childhood storybooks (and most of what he’d forgotten from sage professors at the Academy). He knew of the First Proliferation, of course – life’s opening lunges from impossible planets circling frozen stars and black suns. And he’d not only read about the rise of the Old Ones, he’d stumbled across the remnants of a fair few: once-giants of the universe like the Exxilons, the Eternals, the Jagaroth and the Racnoss. But all those other worlds, from this time when life revelled rather than endured, they were a celebration of regeneration and renewal, aeons before his own civilisation emerged upon the scene. Why wouldn’t he come here, despite the funereal peal of the TARDIS’ cloister bell, clanging as she took him back through that obliging fracture in time?

With a twinge of guilt, the Doctor realised that the TARDIS rang that bell a lot these days, like a child crying in the dark for someone to hear.

He looked at the Andalians around him, loping along in their big thronging groups, holding hands. I wonder if the whole world’s as good as this? Free food wherever you went, there for all in a warm and sheltered climate. The uniformity of dress, transport and residence all suggested a united people of equal status. How better to endure forever together? That handful of deaths long ago, still so strongly commemorated, had perhaps driven a civilising process here; the Andalians had gone on to conquer life, not each other. Slow-baked by eternity, old in years but middle-aged in mind, they drifted on through their civilisation’s endless noon.

And now this big metal cockroach had fallen into the middle of it, a rusting alien amid the shabby strangeness of the landscape. It emitted a deep and eerie chime, like a note from a giant’s kalimba.

Then, to some intricate clockwork orchestration, the metal cockroach cracked open and slowly began to fold itself outward. The crowds quickly backed away. Unearthly music piped from somewhere within, drowning out the grind and scrape of gears and metal plates as a stage was created.

The Doctor was ready to applaud the Harryhausen charm of the self-assembling stage, but the atmosphere in the plaza had grown darker despite the strange suns-light. He took in the fear and uncertainty etched into so many faces, the tightness of the handholds in the crowds. Parents and children, friends and lovers, waiting for the demonstration to start.

‘What’s going on here?’ he asked the group beside him. ‘What’s the demonstration about?’

‘Lifeshroud,’ a man said.

‘They’ve been promoting this demonstration all over our world,’ said a younger woman. ‘Thought-speaks, pod-sights, leaflets. They say it saves you from “death”.’

She spoke the last word like it was foreign to her tongue, and the Doctor supposed it was. ‘Death?’ He glanced back at the imposing swoop of the Tombs of the Ended, a Gaudi cathedral in tiled blue pumice, half-melted in the suns. ‘Andalians don’t die very often, do they?’

‘Of course we don’t,’ said the woman. ‘But you can’t be too careful, can you? I mean, it only makes sense to take precautions when those Kotturuh things are coming.’

The Doctor felt hairs rise on the back of his neck. ‘Kotturuh?’

‘Yes,’ she said. ‘The bringers of Death.’

Chapter Two

The Doctor had known of the Kotturuh since boyhood. Their legend shrieked throughout the cosmos: pathological destroyers from the darkest corner of the universe, beings born to haunt the voids between the galaxies, bringing death to all species they came across. He knew they existed still in his own time, though he’d never seen them: hidden in the dark void, snatching jealously at life like obsessive spinsters.

This is a time when Death is young, he realised.

A hush fell as a figure rose from beneath the stage in the plaza, spinning slowly like the figure of a ballerina in a music box. It was a basic humanoid frame with the image of an Andalian mapped onto it in flickering light; the Doctor supposed it was some sort of AI designed to present in the image of its audience.

‘Welcome, people of Andalia,’ said the image. The voice was slightly synthetic and unnatural to the Doctor’s ears; it was speaking through translation software. ‘As we gather here in the sombre shadow of those magnificent Tombs, we thank you for your attention today. We bring warning of the Kotturuh.’

A low murmuring ran through the crowd as spotlights shone up from the stage. Patterns were projected over the swarm of flies, resolving into images of a sinister fleet. A chill went through the Doctor at the sight of each ship writhing like a many-tentacled monster of metal and crystal, groping through the blackness of space.

‘It’s estimated that more than four thousand worlds have been visited by the Kotturuh,’ the Andalian AI said softly. ‘Where once life endured without end, the Kotturuh have brought limits. They judge and decree how long a race can live … The aged wither and die in a matter of heartbeats, while the young know their time is short. And remember – all that life puts in motion, Death brings to an irrevocable end.’

‘Scare-stories,’ the Doctor breathed, thinking of the old man meditating in the Tombs. The holographic images changed, stirring the Doctor as they showed vast piles of bodies strewn all about a city. He grasped only too well what he was seeing. The crowd did not.

‘These are the dead,’ the AI said gravely. ‘The truth that this pandemic is real is hard for us to comprehend, let alone cope with. On each world they desecrate, the Kotturuh leave behind corpses to be counted in billions. Bodies that corrupt and decay against all rules of nature! And Kotturuh attacks are impossible to predict or prevent. They come from nowhere … attack anywhere …’

As moans and mutterings swelled from the crowds, the Doctor realised that here – to the peoples of this universe – death was a rare accident affecting the tiniest number, not an inevitable fate. How could any population adjust overnight to such a brutal, seismic shift in reality?

‘You will have heard stories, perhaps, of the aftermath of Kotturuh attack,’ said the AI. ‘Some shattered survivors plant their dead in the ground in the hope they will grow again. Or launch them into space in the hope they will some day reach wiser healers than ours. Or preserve them as best they can so as to convince themselves that some form of life endures …’

The crowd was starting to grow restless, upset. Where is all of this going? thought the Doctor.

The images overhead switched off and the AI glowed more brightly. ‘We are here today because we offer a way to escape this anguish.’ The heckling subsided. ‘A way to reject the Kotturuh’s “gift” of death that will allow your lives to go on just as they always have. It is—’

‘Lifeshroud!’ The voice rumbled out from the sky like thunder over a rippling montage of inspiring images – Kotturuh ships vanishing! Bodies of the dead disappearing! Children smiling and looking up to clear and radiant skies!

And while people were looking at the cavalcade of images above, a girl shimmered into existence in the middle of the stage.

The Doctor could tell from the fast breathing, from the sheen of sweat on her sandy-yellow skin, that the girl was real. She stood in a canvas bodysuit, over which she wore a golden chainmail vest overlaid with transparent layers of printed circuits. Connecting cables coiled down her thighs and around her upper arms. On her head, over a mane of hair like wild green seagrass, she wore a sort of golden skullcap, its edges bristling with fibre-optic strands that disappeared into the skin around her face. The girl looked about 15. Her features were sharp and thin except for the owl-like eyes, round and liquid amber.

The Doctor began to push his way through the crowd for a closer look.

‘Lifeshroud can offer YOU salvation,’ the AI declared. ‘Lifeshroud is a unique protective exoskeleton with matter-transmission capability. Its Organo-Dynamic force screens repel one hundred per cent of necrotic actions. While you wear the Lifeshroud, you will endure forever just as nature decreed – because Death Can’t Touch It.’

The slogan striped the seething flies above.

‘Some of you may know of the farming planet, Destran, whose abundance of crops has fed the inner worlds of the Destrel System for centuries. Only two years ago, the Kotturuh brought down death on Destran – leaving both farmer and crop to endure no more than forty summers.’ The AI gestured to the figure quivering on the stage. ‘This is a child of Destran. Her name is Estinee. In a matter of weeks she is condemned to die. It is a death sentence that can only be lifted by the Complete Organo-Dynamic Systems technology of … LIFESHROUD.’

Andalians swapped nervous, hopeful glances.

Estinee spoke, the stage itself amplifying her words. ‘The Kotturuh came to Destran … they took life from everything: people, plants and livestock. Anything older than the life-limits they imposed died.’ She lowered her head. ‘I was touched by a Kotturuh.’

A murmuring buzzed through the crowds, swift as the flies through the air.

‘They marked her for death,’ the AI intoned. ‘But if she wears her Lifeshroud and maintains it correctly, Estinee will go on to lead the life she was meant to – her forever life. Purposeful. Endless. Unstoppable.’

‘How does it work?’ The Doctor cupped his hands over his mouth and raised his voice. ‘I mean, I can stand here and say my coat stops a combine harvester, but until people see proof, why should they believe me?’

‘The gentle-being at the front doubts the efficacy of Lifeshroud! A test is in order.’ The AI held out its hand and a stubby tool with a square nozzle. ‘This is an energy probe, used in heavy industry to separate hard minerals from those with lower melting points. I shall now demonstrate the Lifeshroud’s Complete Organo-Dynamic Systems in action by exposing the child of Destran to the energy probe’s output …’

‘What?’ The Doctor frowned. ‘Wait—’

A beam of intense white light shone out from the probe’s nozzle. Estinee screamed – but then a golden haze haloed about her, deflecting the beam. From the front row the Doctor could feel the heat, and clocked the scorch marks blackening the stage floor. Estinee held out her arms like a gymnast concluding an Olympic routine. Her breathing grew hoarse and ragged. Her skin began to bubble and peel. The gathered Andalians were transfixed, marvelling, jaws hanging slack.

Then the probe switched off and Estinee fell to her knees, groaning with pain. The AI’s voice rose like a preacher’s as it closed the sales pitch. ‘This is the power to cheat the touch of Death in any form!’ it boomed. ‘This is the power of Lifeshroud! We have Lifeshrouds adapted for Andalian physiognomy in stock today! One size fits all. Simply click-scan the symbol overhead with your outer-world trade stamp to make payment and your Lifeshroud will be delivered automatically …’

The symbol in the sky, like a QR code painted by Salvador Dali, flashed and flickered as Andalian hands shot up to scan and buy. Robotic vending machines spun out like drones from inside the stage, speedily distributing Lifeshrouds to those who’d purchased. Estinee was trying to smile through her tears, the gold haze fading from her chainmail now. ‘Lifeshroud saved me,’ she cried, all but adding a Hallelujah! ‘Fully charged, it will save you too!’

The Doctor stared around at the sudden frenzy in the plaza. He felt he’d wandered into the Old Wild West just as a travelling medicine show had come to town, and now everyone was snapping up elixir for its promised health benefits. He looked back at Estinee. ‘Hello. Sorry to interrupt again!’ he shouted. ‘But after absorbing a blast of energy like that you need a medical. And I’m the Doctor!’ He pulled out the sonic screwdriver ready to play it over her.

But the AI stretched out a hand and its metal fingers closed on his wrist. ‘Please put away your diagnostic device. No scanning of Lifeshroud technology is permitted at this time.’

‘I don’t care about your tech!’ He tried to pull free but the grip was too strong. ‘It’s Estinee I’m worried about!’

‘Please put away your diagnostic device,’ the AI repeated. Then the synthetic voice was replaced by one altogether earthier – someone real speaking over shortwave audio circuits. ‘Estinee, it’s coming quicker than we thought.’

Estinee looked suddenly terrified. ‘What?’

‘I’m moving out, activate your—’

The voice cut out as the AI’s head exploded in a shower of fierce red sparks. Estinee was knocked over backwards by the blast and the Doctor was thrown sideways. He hit the ground, ears ringing.

And through scattering Andalian crowds, he saw the impossible.

A familiar creature was striding through the melee, holding some sort of laser gun. A tall, slim figure, incongruous in black dinner suit and grey dress gloves. A white ball hung at his chest, attached to a fleshy cord that stretched past the black bow tie into the red, twitching fronds that dangled from the lower portion of his face.

It was an Ood.

Chapter Three

The Doctor’s hearts bumped faster. For a second he was back on snowy Davies Street, eyes locked with a vision of Ood Sigma, chosen of the Ood Brain, staring at him in silence. But no, he was sure now that this was a different creature; what was it doing here, billions of years before the Ood Brain even came to exist?

And was he aiming for the robot, thought the Doctor, or for me?

‘The weapon is shown to be fully functional, Mr Ball,’ the Ood announced, seemingly to no one in particular. ‘Now our private test of the Lifeshroud can begin.’

Estinee had propped herself up on one elbow. Frantically she slapped her fingers against a red marble sewn into the chainmail hem of her Lifeshroud, over and over. But the Ood fired his laser straight at her in a continuous burst. She shook in the coruscating beam as again the golden glow enveloped her: but her hair went up like gunpowder, and her exposed flesh rippled and puckered.

‘Stop it!’ the Doctor bellowed. He jammed the sonic against the nearest mobile vending machine and it went haywire, accelerating into the Ood. It smashed into him, knocking him to the ground, and left him half-buried in Lifeshrouds. Andalians completed the job, piling in to grab their goods.

Estinee was shaking on the stage, groaning. The Doctor climbed up to examine her and her wide, pale eyes met his. The ashen skin around them was already regenerating.

‘No trick, then. It really works.’ Gently he lifted her into his arms. The stage began to fold itself back again, and the Doctor leapt back down into the plaza.

The Ood pushed the vending bot away and sat up, his red eyes blazing into the Doctor’s.

‘Hold on, Estinee,’ the Doctor muttered, spitting out flies as he started away. ‘We’ve got to run.’

‘No, I don’t need a doctor!’ Estinee was still dazed. ‘Leave me on the stage.’

The Doctor glanced back as the huge metal cockroach of the closed-up stage rocked back, reassembled, and then faded in a trail of yellow light leaving only the buzzing flies. ‘Can’t. Sorry.’

‘Fallomax took it back – to the Polythrope, our ship. She must think I’m on it.’

‘Was it her voice I heard through the robot?’ The Doctor looked at Estinee as he pushed a path through the scrum of Andalians. ‘Fallomax sends you out to get half-killed while she stays safely on board?’

Estinee didn’t seem to be listening, slapping blindly again at the round buttons in her chainmail top. ‘The ’Shroud’s teleport isn’t working.’

‘Must have gone kaput in the heat of that blast. It’s a miracle you didn’t.’

Estinee grabbed hold of his lapels. ‘Doctor, what did you say? Get me to the astroport. To the Polythrope.’ Tears were welling in her big eyes, running black with ash; she shook them away crossly. ‘It hurts. I don’t die but it hurts so bad and I have to get clear …’

‘There must be a local hospital—’

‘I told you I don’t need a doctor. Get me to the Polythrope.’ She moaned, still shaking with pain. ‘We shouldn’t have done this show. I told her. Too much. Too close.’

The Doctor glanced back through the thronging crowd and the fly-swarm. He saw the Ood coming after them, translation sphere clutched in its scorched glove. The silver ball crackled with power, and Andalians in the Ood’s way went down like sacks of cracked jade.

‘Our friend’s still after us.’ The Doctor quickened his step with Estinee in his arms and managed to sonic open the doors to one of the dusty, rusty hovercars waiting at the side of the road. He bundled Estinee into the passenger seat, but she instantly rolled across to the driver’s side and shoved the Doctor back out.

‘Oi!’ the Doctor shouted, as Estinee started up the engines.

‘Thanks for the lift,’ she shouted.

The Ood was barely 20 metres away now, swinging up his gun. Sonicking open the rear door, the Doctor managed to scramble inside as a laser blast scorched across the roof and cracked the thick blue glass of the window.

‘One good lift deserves another!’ the Doctor shouted.

‘Fine. Just stop interfering.’

‘You might as well say, stop breathing.’ Another laser blast rocked the hovercar. ‘But maybe wait till I’m wearing one of your Lifeshrouds …’

Estinee wasn’t listening, her fist pressed into what looked like a box of brown custard, manipulating the controls. With a sputtering whoosh of unlikely motors, the car leapt up into the air, flying in a sickening spin. The Ood fired again and again, sizzling bolts that smashed tiles from the turrets and towers about them.

‘Aren’t you a bit young to drive?’ the Doctor called, fighting to stay upright in the rear seat.

‘Apparently I’m old enough to die in a few weeks,’ she shot back as she turned clumsily and accelerated away.

The Doctor supposed that when you were meant to live for always you could take your time growing up. The new generations’ childhoods would be fleeting and fearful. He felt a deep spark of anger for what the Kotturuh had done: taking innocent lives running to nature’s clock and imposing their own grim limits on them.

Then something like a rugby ball made from bronze suddenly swept into view alongside the driver’s door, scattering flies, ticking and crackling. A fierce blue glow formed an iris in its centre.

‘Company!’ warned the Doctor.

Estinee convulsed her fist in the interface and the hovercar dropped down and banked left. There were more Andalians in the street, staring up in horror at this noisy intrusion racing between the tightly spaced buildings. The rugby ball soon caught up with them. It was watching Estinee through the window.

The Doctor scanned the device with the sonic. ‘Powered by radioactive decay of some element I’ve never heard of,’ he reported. ‘And clockwork.’

‘It’s a tracker,’ said Estinee.

‘Andalian?’

‘Not their style. I reckon it belongs to that thing that shot me.’ Estinee looked back at him, and he saw that her face was fully healed. ‘Everyone wants to get hold of our Lifeshroud—’

As if for emphasis, the tracker hurled itself at the driver’s window, cracking the glass. Estinee swerved, and with a wrench of stone on metal the car tore the top from a tower, raining tiles like confetti in its wake. The engines’ angry flutter was trailed by a rasping whine.

‘Get us higher!’ the Doctor yelled. ‘Make for the desert.’

But the tracker had flown above them now. It smashed down against the hovercar’s roof and they dipped lower, skimming the rooftops like a boat over a stone ocean. Ancient stone exploded into dust beneath them. A hunk of rubble struck the windscreen and the outside world was lost in a spider’s web of fractures.

Estinee shouted her frustrations at the controls. ‘They’re going to take us down!’

The Doctor climbed into the passenger seat and punched a hole in the splintered windscreen. Thousands of flies blew straight inside, blinding, suffocating. The landscape outside corkscrewed past through the black swarm; the Doctor glimpsed ancient temples raised from the blue desert sands. Estinee’s mouth was wide open in a fly-choked scream.

Like a dying beast in its death throes the hovercar ploughed through a sand dune and smashed sidelong into a pyramidal shrine steeped in spires and bell towers. The noise of the impact was deafening, gut-punching. The Doctor felt his bones turn to stabbing pains. The world went dark, and when his eyes snapped back open he realised some protective field must’ve kicked in to save him from injury. Estinee lay sprawled upside down in the footwell, but she was breathing, and the coils of the Lifeshroud were flickering gold.

‘Estinee?’ The Doctor spat out thick mouthfuls of flies. ‘Estinee, you all right?’ He realised the bronze rugby ball was back, hovering at the broken window beside him, scanning again. Sore and exhausted, he jabbed the sonic at the drone and in the blaze of baleful blue it dropped to the ground. ‘Who sent you?’ he demanded. ‘Well?’

‘You destroyed our temple,’ came a sad, ponderous voice.

The Doctor looked up to find Andalians emerging from the other strange church-like buildings in this quarter of the world. They stared at the wreckage and clung together in shock, chanting a dirge under their breaths.

‘I’m sorry,’ the Doctor began. ‘No one was hurt—?’

‘Nothing is destroyed on Andalia,’ said the man, his beak turned down in almost pantomime dismay. ‘We outgrew our gods in childhood but we honour their place in our history.’

‘Oh, me too. I honour history like you would not believe …’ Then words seared into his head with such force he gasped. Words on a tombstone, a legend glaring from a screen: Captain Adelaide Brooke, 1999–2059 …

It was Estinee’s voice that made him open his eyes. ‘Help.’ She was stirring in the wreck. ‘Someone, help …!’

The Doctor turned from the shell-shocked crowd. Waving his arm through the flies, he staggered over to the shattered hovercar. ‘It’s all right, Estinee. I was trying to help, remember? I’m the Doctor.’

‘Can’t get me.’ She was gazing past him, mumbling, up at the sky. ‘Not again. Please. Not again …’

‘What not again?’ The Doctor turned to follow her gaze.

The sky rained down on him: a hard, sudden scatter of bits of black. The Doctor pulled his coat up over his head until the bombardment stopped. The Andalians’ dirge died out in gasps and whispers.

And he saw then that the air was clear of flies. Because the insects lay now in a thick carpet of black all around.

They were dead.

‘Please, not again!’ Estinee screamed.

The Doctor stared as dark shapes and symbols scratched themselves impossibly into the sky. He couldn’t make sense of them, couldn’t decipher them consciously. But he sensed a vast, inchoate power building in the atmosphere. ‘Estinee, what is …?’

He never finished, as the Andalians about him started to scream and shake. Skin sagged from their shrivelling forms and limbs twisted into bony sticks – as if age and decay held back for millennia had finally burst their banks. The Doctor saw a woman nearby collapse, reached out to her – but she was dust in a moment. He doubled over as if every cell in his body had been stuck with pins.

Suddenly a creature stood, bulky and intimidating among the dying and dead. The Doctor saw it through a haze, as if even the air and light were trying to shy away.

The creature stood two metres tall on thick tentacle-legs that squirmed like maggots, giant and engorged. Jellyfish eyes, lit like dying embers, swivelled behind an intricate veil. The hard carapace of its body was dressed in scarlet velvet embroidered with skeins of ash that flashed and glittered. Six fingers flexed on both skeletal hands, as though beckoning the dark to come down over Andalia.

As distant screams and shrieks rang out to silence, the creature’s voice was like a breath from the morgue: ‘Judgement has been passed. The gift is given.’

‘Who are you?’ The Doctor took a bold step towards the creature that stood so haughtily among the fallen and chose his pronoun with more precision: ‘What are you?’

‘You know us, little one.’ The whisper curled like winter leaves. ‘We are the Kotturuh.’

Chapter Four

The Doctor held very still. ‘I wondered all my life if I’d ever meet you. The bringers of death.’

‘Death is our treasure. Our blood. Our doctrine.’

‘Just as the legends say.’ The Doctor felt physically sick standing so close to the creature; he could feel her will pushing into his mind, shifting his cells like beads on an abacus, but did his best to keep the pain from his face. ‘You killed everyone here?’

‘The Andalians are indolent. They have little to contribute to the greater universe. Judgement has been passed.’

‘You killed everyone?’

‘Life will still endure. But in a pattern of our choosing.’

The Doctor looked around beneath a sky that writhed with shadows. He saw a single Andalian child crawl from the sprawl of bodies. It peered around, mindless of the devastation, then scooped dead flies from the ground and ate hungrily before running away.

‘From this day, the Andalian lifespan endures a single lunar orbit,’ the Kotturuh announced. ‘Born. Feed. Reproduce. Die.’

‘A span of, what – seventy, eighty days?’ Heartbroken, the Doctor shook his head. ‘The Andalians have endured for millions of years … and you’ve left them barely more than mayflies?’

‘The living time of Andalia’s flora and fauna has been adjusted also, to help support this new life cycle.’

‘Adjusted,’ the Doctor sneered. ‘Curtailed! Ended! Why?’

‘One day this world will be of strategic value. If won in war, the death would be worse. This is our gift.’

The Doctor shook his head. ‘It’s like trying to fix a broken watch with a sledgehammer.’

‘Our hearts beat to the Kotturuh Design.’

‘These people have a whole civilisation, a history, a culture. Who are you to sweep all that life away!’

‘Who are you to save it?’ she countered softly. ‘Who here on Andalia chose when the existence of a fly was ended? The superior form of life.’

‘A plague of locusts isn’t superior to a field of wheat because it destroys it.’ There among so many dead, the Kotturuh’s cold-burning eyes upon him, the Doctor felt horribly exposed, but refused to let it show. ‘Prove your superiority: reverse that process. I mean, if you’re using some kind of airborne DNA-altering retrovirus—’

A chill voice sounded in his ear: ‘Be silent.’

‘Whoa!’ The Doctor started, spun round – another of the Kotturuh had drawn up behind him. This one was bigger, squatter, wearing velvet garments adorned with complex patterns that seemed to shift as he tried to take them in. While the first Kotturuh had regarded him with a hunter’s cold indifference, the Doctor sensed an appetite in this one. He held very, very still, as the creature’s damp eyes took him in and grey fingers, marbled silver like a slug’s trail, hovered at his temples.

‘Do not seek to explain our mysteries with your own notions of science,’ the Kotturuh purred. ‘You are from times to come. You are not part of our Design.’

‘I’m a Time Lord.’ The Doctor smiled. ‘Your so-called Design doesn’t even come close to a bloke who walks in eternity. You can’t touch me.’

‘Your lifespan has been allotted, your arrangement with Death completed.’ The Kotturuh shivered closer, the veil gusting in her cold breath. ‘You should not be here.’

‘Makes me hard to predict, doesn’t it?’ The Doctor dropped his smile. ‘There was a time when Time Lords kept away from this age. But things change, don’t they?’ He gestured round. ‘I’m here on inspection, and I don’t like what you’re doing. And that means I’m going to do something about it, and that means I’m obliged to give you due warning: stop.’

‘The knight riding to the rescue.’ The first Kotturuh had slipped nearer, icy voice mocking. ‘Is this how you see yourself?’

‘Hard not to. I’m very good at rescues.’ As the Doctor glanced between the two threatening creatures, he saw Estinee move inside the battered transporter, trying to climb quietly out through the window. He tried to keep his face neutral. ‘Now, the stories say you take a creature from each inhabited world and bring them into your Design so Judgement can be passed …’

But the Kotturuh had already turned from him. They moved and shivered as if agitated and in the blur of a second they were both beside the wreck, staring in.

‘The child who tries to hide,’ hissed the first.

‘Doctor!’ Estinee shouted, reaching out for him.

‘Leave her alone!’ The Doctor started towards them.

Without even looking, the Kotturuh gestured to him and their fingers twitched. The air about him burned bright with terrible power. The Doctor was flung to the ground, back arching, his skin scorching hot, a pressure like fingers on his throat.

The creatures gazed down at him, dispassionate.

‘He thinks he is a knight come to the rescue,’ sneered the larger of the two. ‘But I see only a fool … surrounded by the dead.’

‘Then I’d check your great Design, Kotturuh.’ Defiant, the Doctor pushed himself up on one elbow. ‘Cos I don’t think you see what’s coming.’

The two figures weren’t even listening. They shimmered and their forms blew away into the patterns of the sky and were lost from sight.

The Doctor scrambled painfully up, as the ghosts and darkness slowly faded from the heavens. All that was left was the silence and stillness of an aftermath. He got up, painfully, and again stumbled over to the wreck of the hovercar.

Estinee was gone.

The Doctor leaned heavily on the metal hulk, thought of those who had driven it in its long existence, and how now they were bones and dust. He could feel, instinctively, how everything had changed, in just a few minutes. A world and a way of life – a celebration of life – was over. His hearts felt close to breaking.

There was movement from behind one of the pyramid temples. The Doctor looked up, hopeful for more signs of life.

The Ood in the tux stepped out into the hard light of the setting suns.

‘Stop.’ The Doctor pulled out his sonic and levelled it at the advancing Ood. ‘I don’t know what you’re doing here, but I know you were trying to kill the girl. And after what’s just happened …’

‘The Kotturuh have made their Judgement.’

‘And I’m ready to make mine,’ the Doctor snapped. ‘Another step and I overload that translator sphere of yours. Boom. Make a terrible mess of that lovely dinner suit of yours.’

The Ood inclined his head politely. ‘Mr Ball would sooner avoid going boom.’

‘What’s your name?’

‘I am designated Brian.’

‘Brian!’ The Doctor raised his eyebrows. ‘Ood Brian! I’m the Doctor.’

‘Doctor?’ Brian’s eyes seemed to flame a deeper red. ‘You know of my species?’

‘I know that you’re carrying your hindbrain – Little Brian – in the sphere. You were born into slavery. When are you from – forty-first century? Forty-second?’ The Ood didn’t answer, so the Doctor flicked the sonic to a warning whirr. ‘What are you doing here, billions of years before the Ood Brain even came to exist?’

‘Earning a living,’ said Brian.

‘You’re paid to kill?’

‘My objective was not to kill Estinee of Destran. I was testing the capabilities of the Lifeshroud.’

‘Wait …’ The Doctor lowered the sonic, felt a rush of hope. ‘The Lifeshroud! The Andalians were buying them – maybe some of them were wearing them when the Kotturuh …?’

‘There are no survivors,’ Brian said flatly.

The Doctor hesitated, swallowed hard. ‘How can you be sure?’

‘Because I told him so myself.’ A deep, plummy voice with a metallic edge oozed from the ruins of the temple pyramid. ‘Doctor, is it?’

‘That’s right.’

‘Well, good Doctor, I have searched for survivors with my remote trackers … and there are none to be found.’

Another of the bronze rugby balls rose up into sight. The Doctor raised the sonic again, but it only projected a bleached-out image, faint and flickering in the fading light. It showed the plaza strewn with bones, some clutching hold of Lifeshrouds in skeletal fingers, some even wearing them.

‘It seems the Lifeshrouds will not function without certain crystals of the correct charge,’ said the voice. ‘Said crystals sold … separately.’

‘A con, then.’ The Doctor scowled. ‘Where are you? You were watching, scanning and trying to kill me. Before we get to the why, let’s start with the who …’

‘Of course …’ A 3D image shone from a lens in the cam-bot’s casing. It showed a diminutive, carbuncled being. The creature had only vestigial arms and legs but with three thick and sturdy tails working like a tripod to hold it in the air. A single yellow eye shone through the warts and hair of the face.

‘I am Verv-Hoondai Chalskal,’ the image declared. ‘High Ambassador of Skalithai and Standing Throne-Being of the Pan-Victis Defensive Alliance.’ Another tail, sinewy and prehensile, snaked out from the middle of its back, holding some sort of official seal. ‘May my diplomatic credentials entice your consideration and understanding.’

The Doctor duly glanced at the proffered documents and shrugged. ‘So basically you were trying to murder me on official business, is that what you’re saying?’

‘I blush to confess that I believed you to be a thief and a saboteur, good Doctor,’ said Chalskal. ‘When you abducted the child of Destran I believed you were attempting to steal the Lifeshroud, and I could not allow that to happen.’

Brian piped up: ‘Estinee’s surviving the crash despite extreme neck trauma would seem to be further proof of the Lifeshroud’s efficacy.’

The Doctor glared at him. ‘Not exactly a controlled experiment.’

‘In any case! Having remotely observed your altercation with the Kotturuh, I now know the truth of things. Please accept my bow of apology.’ Chalskal tilted forward on two of his tails, and remained there, staring at the floor. He kept it up for over a minute.

The Doctor cleared his throat. ‘OK, apology accepted—’

‘No, no. Please, Doctor. Allow me to conclude my bow.’

‘There’s really no need …’

‘Forgive me, I must.’ Chalskal paused. ‘Allow me to incorporate an additional bow for this inconvenience.’

The Doctor gritted his teeth and turned to Brian. ‘You work for him?’

‘On a freelance basis,’ Brian agreed.

‘A mercenary?’

‘Mr Ball prefers the term condottiere.’ Brian shrugged. ‘Truth to tell, I am primarily an assassin. Who better to test a garment that’s said to keep its wearer alive in the most … testing of circumstances.’

‘Estinee has been taken by the Kotturuh,’ said the Doctor. ‘Why? She’s already been judged, she’s felt their touch. Why would they take her?’

‘Perhaps because she wears the Lifeshroud, and they fear its implications? Hence they attacked before it could be employed,’ said Chalskal. ‘The important thing is, we must save the child! Brian’s services are at your disposal, and I will aid your mission in any way I can.’

‘Whoa, whoa, hang on a minute,’ the Doctor said. ‘Are you sure it’s the girl you want to save – or this Lifeshroud? That’s what your Ood came here for, isn’t it? To test it – and if it worked, to steal it.’

‘To place it in the public domain,’ Chalskal protested. ‘To dress the frightened peoples of the Pan-Victis Defensive Alliance in its protection—’

‘To steal it,’ the Doctor said flatly. ‘That’s why your tracker forced me and Estinee down, why Brian came after us. But what about this Fallomax, and her ship—’

‘It departed even before your crash,’ said Brian, ‘cloaked to evade detection.’

‘But all is not lost! May my tails upend me if I lie.’ Chalskal held resolutely still on his fleshy tripod for a few seconds as if to prove it.

With a sigh, the Doctor sank down to his haunches in the ruins of Andalia’s ancient temples and of its fresh, far-reaching dead. ‘It feels like all is very much lost.’

‘Listen to me.’ Chalskal leaned in closer. ‘Estinee’s employer, the estimable Professor Hana Fallomax, has been developing the Lifeshroud for almost a century, originally to protect the wearer from potentially fatal accidents. Then her people were judged by the Kotturuh. Judged and found wanting …’

The Doctor knew he was plucking at any distraction to lift him from the horror he’d just witnessed, but was intrigued despite himself. ‘How did she survive?’

‘Fallomax was working far off-world, in a secret facility,’ Brian explained. ‘But no one can outrun death.’

Chalskal merely sniffed. ‘The professor does a fair job of it. As far as we know, Fallomax has sold Lifeshrouds in bulk only on seven worlds – and each was invaded by the Kotturuh before the crystals vital to their operation could be supplied.’

‘Taking action before Lifeshrouds can stop them.’ The Doctor considered. ‘Could the Kotturuh have taken the girl to get to Fallomax?’

‘It is possible,’ said Brian, ‘if unexpectedly elaborate.’

‘But if the Lifeshroud falls into the Kotturuh’s hands, then the best hope for countless worlds’ survival is lost.’ Chalskal rocked back and forth on his tails. ‘We need to move quickly. My tracker injected a signal device into the child’s genetic profile.’

‘Snoop DNA,’ Brian translated. ‘We can find her, wherever she’s gone.’

‘I know now, good Doctor, that you are not some opportunistic thief. You are a philanthropist such as myself. When I possess the Lifeshroud, I will offer protection for all, so the Kotturuh can be fought! So we can prevent another Andalia …’ Chalskal tipped forward to the point where he was almost kissing the virtual floor. ‘I beseech you, with this magnificent bow, to aid me in my endeavour. I will naturally reimburse you for your time and assistance. Brian will confirm I am most generous.’

‘I don’t want your money.’

‘Your purity of spirit shines forth,’ said Chalskal smarmily. ‘Brian has the wherewithal to track the child, and a fast ship with which to reach her.’

‘We’ll take my ship,’ said the Doctor.

‘I am eager to see it,’ said Brian.

‘And I will be awaiting updates most keenly.’ Chalskal rotated almost upside down, his longest tail providing a fourth support to the existing tripod. ‘Kindly accept – in this further magnificent bow – my best felicitations for the success of your mission.’

The flickering image of Chalskal stayed in his curious posture for many, many minutes, although the Doctor and Brian had gone, and the dead could take no notice.

First Interlude

Fire licked and spat through the sockets of the three skulls perched on the flaming torches. Barbara held a fourth; if the others represented Ian, Susan and the old man, she supposed this one was hers. She stared into those gaping eyeholes, wondering what the face had looked like, masking the bone. What had this man or woman done, who-knew-how-many thousands of years ago, to end their miserable days here in the Cave of Skulls with a stone axe in the back of their head?

The skull’s blank grin seemed to mock her incomprehension. Yesterday had been lessons and staff meetings and bad coffee, just as normal. Today, sense and logic were as lost as she was and death seemed all but certain. And all because she’d forced her way through a blue door into madness, into the old man’s terrifying world.

He was suddenly beside her, weary and impatient, trying to wrest the skull from her hands. ‘Let me do it. We may not have long.’

‘I’m fine,’ she insisted, turning from him. She placed the skull over the torch. The fire crackled through the split in the top of the skull, and the empty eyes belched greasy smoke.

She looked over to Ian, who was peering through a crack in the wall with Susan, keeping watch for their captors’ return. The plan with the skulls had been his: ‘To all intents and purposes, we are going to die,’ he’d said. If the tribe holding them believed that their prisoners had turned into fiery demons, they might run and cower, afraid for their own lives.

‘While they’re distracted, we’ll escape.’ Ian had spoken with such certainty. Yesterday he’d been just a colleague. Now he was already a rock to her, as strong as the one that blocked the exit to this cave.

She surveyed the baleful Halloween sight of the skulls on their sticks. ‘Do you really think it’ll work?’ she said softly. ‘Convince the tribe that we’ve turned into fiery demons?’

‘I should hope so. Yes, I should hope so.’ The old man had retreated to the shadows at the back of the cave. ‘You’ve seen how stupid these people are.’

‘Primitive isn’t the same as stupid,’ said Barbara.

He patted the sand beside him. ‘Come. Rest your legs. We will need all our strength to get back to the ship.’

Barbara did so. The sand was cold. The animal grease they’d rubbed on the torches stank as it burned, her throat felt parched. The skulls grinned back at her. ‘It’s like we’ve died already.’

‘Now, now. You mustn’t talk that way.’ The old man put his hand on hers for a moment. ‘Susan and I, we’ve cheated death before, you know, and we shall again.’ He paused. ‘We all shall.’

The skulls went on staring.

‘You’ve reminded me. There’s a folk tale of a man who cheated death,’ said Barbara, ‘by the Brothers Grimm. About a tailor who had twelve children, and a 13th on the way that he couldn’t afford to feed. So he tried to find someone who’d be godfather to the newborn.’

‘Did he, now?’ She caught the derision in the old man’s sniff. ‘Did he, indeed?’

‘I’m sorry.’ Barbara wrapped her arms about her knees. ‘I’m only talking because … just waiting like this in this terrible place—’

‘Quite right, my dear. I feel we could both use our minds being taken off our predicament a little.’ His eyes twinkled, softening the craggy face. ‘Tell me this story. It can’t be more Grimm than our current predicament, hmm?’

Disarmed by this rare flash of humour, Barbara smiled despite herself. ‘All right. Well, the tailor went looking for the best godfather, and he met God. God said he would bring health and happiness to the boy. The tailor refused, because God condoned poverty in the world. The tailor went on along the road and he met the Devil, and the Devil said he’d bring the child gold and pleasure, but the tailor knew how the devil deceives mankind.’

‘A curious road this tailor travelled …’

‘Very curious, because as he continued along it, the tailor met Death. The tailor knew that Death treats all people the same, rich or poor, he doesn’t discriminate. And so, on the following Sunday, Death becomes the child’s godfather …’ Barbara broke off. ‘I’m sorry. It’s not a good story for—’

‘No, no, no,’ said the Doctor, his eyes bright as the firelight. ‘Go on, my dear. Do go on.’

Chapter Five

The Doctor stood at the glowing coral of the TARDIS console, trying to push from his mind the horror of the carnage left behind at the plaza outside the Tombs of the Ended. Bones and bodies, spread like so much Andalian manure. Small, nascent creatures rising from the remains, inheriting a world they would never understand.

Brian was making adjustments to an ornate device, like a retirement clock crossed with a sextant – his Snoop DNA tracker. In gloomy silence, the Doctor uncoiled a set of cables with crocodile clips to try to link the two technologies.

‘You are considering the end of the Andalian civilisation,’ Brian suggested. ‘I witnessed the same on the planet Perthanon and on Zoot in the aftermath of Fallomax’s sales drives. The Kotturuh bring an agreeable speed and efficiency to the mass murders they perform, do they not?’

‘Changing the natural order of the universe according to some half-baked doctrine they’ve invented?’ The Doctor shook his head, sickened. ‘To kill as they do is perverse.’

Brian looked at him steadily. ‘You have never killed?’

The Doctor became very absorbed in connecting a cable to the console. ‘Only when I’ve had to.’

‘And you have had to on many occasions.’

‘Too many.’ The Doctor bit the plastic covering from the cable and separated the wires inside. ‘Just who are you, Brian? How did you end up in the Dark Times?’

‘With the help of this vessel.’ Brian gestured around it. ‘The interior has changed, but not the dimensional peculiarities.’

‘And I thought you were just playing it cool about the bigger inside than outside thing …’ The Doctor frowned, looked up. ‘Wait. You’re saying you stowed away?’

‘Not exactly. Our encounter with the true owner of this TARDIS was unpleasant.’ Brian’s head cocked to one side. ‘We presume you killed him and took his identity?’

‘I am him.’

Brian seemed smug as he petted Mr Ball. ‘So our presumption is confirmed.’

‘I don’t remember you, Brian. And I’ve not been this way before, so either you’re lying, or you’re from my future and don’t know me because I’ve changed …’ The Doctor spat out the word. ‘Well, that’s me. That’s the Doctor. Ever-changing. Always going on.’

‘Yes, you are, rather,’ Brian muttered.

‘I came here looking for peace, for hope. Time out. What do I find? A world that’s waited to end the minute I show up.’

‘Mr Ball suggests you have a somewhat overinflated sense of your importance.’

The Doctor glared. ‘Is this “Mr Ball” stuff some sort of dissociative disorder, or is there something in that sphere affecting your behaviour?’

‘We all must take responsibility for our own actions.’ Brian’s ornate gadget beeped, breaking the mood and the moment. ‘Connection made. Coordinates for the child of Destran’s current location are now downloading to this TARDIS.’

‘My TARDIS.’ The Doctor looked over at Brian. ‘Is it fair to say that Chalskal wants us to find Estinee, hoping that wherever she is there are some working Lifeshrouds?’

‘Indeed. So that Mr Chalskal can outfit an army to repel the Kotturuh.’

‘A war where no one dies,’ the Doctor murmured. ‘It’s an improvement.’

‘Mr Ball would think it a nightmare.’

‘I don’t think he’d like what I’d say back to him.’ The Doctor studied the information loading up from Brian’s device. ‘These astronavigational calculations are like none I’ve ever seen. But they seem to lead somewhere called … Mordeela.’

‘A world sacred to the Kotturuh,’ Brian said gravely. ‘It is said to hold the gateway between their own dwelling-space and the cosmos they hold to account.’ He paused. ‘Mr Ball and I have heard many tales about Mordeela. About great leaders searching out the Kotturuh to bargain for the lives.’

‘And?’

‘It is a vale from which none have been known to return,’ Brian said. ‘Mordeela is a word from an old tongue: it means Judgement.’

The word hung between them for a while, like snow refusing to fall.

‘Perhaps those great leaders never arrived.’ The Doctor was engaging the long-range scanner. ‘Mordeela looks to be heavily shielded. A barrier that keeps surrounding space one picosecond ahead of the rest of the universe. But! Like on every other occasion, the Kotturuh’s Judgement is flawed.’

Brian blinked. ‘Do you wish me to ask In what way?’

‘A phase-shift like that will keep out conventional ships and projectiles – but not a TARDIS. We should be able to slip past the Kotturuh defences without anyone knowing.’ The Doctor threw the take-off lever. ‘Let’s see, shall we?’

With a wheeze and a heave of improbable engines, the TARDIS dipped its toes in the local infinity.

Estinee sat alone on the rocky floor, at a junction of tunnels where she would hear anyone coming. Too afraid to close her eyes, she kept them fixed on the veins of light in the rock, let their pulse and glow wash over her. There were whispering and mutterings down here in the tunnels. Estinee knew what they were, what they meant, and she knew she should listen.

But she was so tired. So afraid.

It was the third time Estinee had been brought to Mordeela. The first time it happened, she thought she’d die there. Then Fallomax had found her, got her out.

‘We help each other, kid. Deal?’

It was only when Estinee had run away, when the pain had grown unbearable, that the Kotturuh found her again. Again, Fallomax had got her out.

‘Don’t you ever try to leave me again!’ She could see Fallomax’s furious face right up in her own, feel bony fingers gripping her shoulders. ‘We have to stick together. We’re all each other has.’

Some nights, Estinee hadn’t been sure which was worse. The demonstrations with Fallomax, the pain of all that … or being left here in the tunnels with only them for company …

You have the crystals in your pocket, she told herself. Fallomax can still find you. She needs you. Hold on to the crystals.

Still Estinee wore the Lifeshroud. She wondered what the Kotturuh would do about that. But she knew the moment would come. The Kotturuh had a different relationship with time. They rarely responded to events; they shaped them. Their hearts beat and minds worked only according to their Design.

But sooner or later, she knew they would come for her again.

A voice, commanding but still fearful, carried faintly through the gloomy dark. ‘Your Excellencies … Great and noble Kotturuh … I thank you for granting me audience.’

‘A living one,’ Estinee whispered aloud, and like a mouse she scurried to see. Privileged creatures were taken here sometimes – viziers and kings and nabobs, gathered from far-off worlds. She liked to hear their voices, even with the shake in them. She liked to peep at them, though they held so stiff with fear. The weakness they tried to conceal proved they were alive.

The tunnel opened onto a kind of curving balcony. You could cross to its edge and stare out over the vast circular space that stretched upward into darkness and downward into dark red, pulsing light. The walls were scratched and painted with patterns, but Estinee didn’t look. She knew what happened if you looked. She lingered in the tunnel mouth, not wanting to be seen. There was a twisting promontory extending from the far side like an animal’s tongue frozen in rock. Estinee saw the figure there, a riot of scales and spikes – whether hide or battledress she wasn’t sure.

‘Speak.’ The cold draught of the Kotturuh’s voice came from out of nowhere. It crept around the cavernous space, stealing echoes from the stone.

The nabob did as commanded. ‘I represent the world of Turska Gordansis and its dominions—’

‘We know the lives you represent. This is why we summoned you.’

Estinee shuddered. She had seen Turska Gordansis on Fallomax’s star charts. She had better listen to it all.

‘Speak,’ the Kotturuh prompted icily.

‘You brought Judgement to the world of Tuthmoser in a neighbouring star system,’ called the nabob. ‘You left its people with lives lasting less than one hundred years. But Palkh, its sister world … you granted lifespans a thousand times as long.’

The accusation, if such it was, was all but swallowed by the silence that followed.

‘When civilisation fell on Tuthmoser, the creatures of Palkh invaded. Now their forces mass on our borders. They covet the empire of Turska Gordansis and wait only for your Judgement upon us.’ The emissary paused, as if summoning strength to go on. ‘I say to you now … we deserve long lives so we can stand against our aggressors. Make your Judgement on the lesser worlds of our dominion. Billions of lives will still be yours, but let us endure to protect those worlds … help the survivors adjust …’

Estinee closed her eyes. She could hear the emissary’s words growing slurred. The thing was happening to him. The change.

‘In exchange, we will make tribute to you … become your disciples, that we may preach the word of the Kotturuh …’ The emissary clutched his head with many limbs, groaning in pain. ‘Only … please … let us … last …’

‘Your time will be short,’ the Kotturuh voice declared, flat of feeling. ‘Your dominions will succeed you and bring better worth to creation. Judgement shall pass at the moment decreed.’

And as Estinee listened, the nabob’s gnashing and babbling began to resolve itself into words and numbers that sounded strange on his lips: ‘…two-seven, tau, six-heaven-two, sky-alpha. Fixed. Iota. Eight-zero-zero …’ A stream of syllables repeated over and over as he stood, head bowed in acquiescence, still as a statue, only his tongue twitching to spit the Kotturuh incantation.

He would be dead soon. But he wouldn’t stop repeating the pattern. They could put thoughts and words in your mind – whether just for amusement, or because it brought them power, Estinee didn’t know.

But she did know that, though the nabob was dead, he would start to move again, like the others.

Hugging herself for comfort, Estinee edged back up the tunnel. She placed her face to the veins of light in the rock and tried to remember how they felt – those days when good things lasted and everyone lived for ever.

Chapter Six

The exclusion zone around Mordeela was a tougher nut to crack than the Doctor had figured, but he found a tiny worn spot in the shield. ‘Must be where the Kotturuh spaceships travel in and out. And we can get in too!’

The TARDIS groaned like a pregnant whale until, with a final judder, the console room rocked and fell quiet.

Brian rose from the chair and brushed himself down with the air of a long-suffering Jeeves. ‘We have arrived?’

‘On the planet Mordeela.’ The Doctor checked the controls. ‘Inside the planet Mordeela, in fact.’ A smooth-walled tunnel showed on the scanner, lit dimly by snail-trails of crystal in the rock. ‘About a mile underground.’

Brian looked down at his tuxedo. ‘I feel underdressed.’

‘In that?’

‘Without heavy weaponry.’

‘Ha! Well, don’t forget – you, me, the TARDIS, we don’t belong in the Dark Times. Existing outside the Kotturuh Design gives us the best weapon – surprise!’

Brian considered. ‘Our best weapon is something you shout to enthuse a small child?’

‘I’ve brought down empires with less,’ the Doctor said, with a confidence he wanted to feel. ‘How close are Estinee’s life signs?’

‘Within a mile of here. I regret I cannot be more exact, but the readings are distorted.’ Brian adjusted the device then shook his head. ‘Mr Ball suggests that a background power source is causing interference.’

‘There’s definitely something down here,’ the Doctor agreed. ‘The TARDIS is registering it, but almost … unconsciously.’ He smoothed his hand through his quiff. ‘Well, we won’t find answers in here. Ready to go outside?’

‘After you, Doctor.’

The Doctor opened the door and stepped cautiously outside. No sign of life. No sign of death. No alarms, at least. Skeins of soft light pulsed in the walls.

‘Natural luminescence,’ Brian observed, behind him.

‘The surface of the planet is exposed to galvanic radiation blown in from all sorts of exotic local stars,’ the Doctor agreed. ‘Forces like that are bound to form crystals with special properties. Light’s just the visible wavelength. Wonder what else it’s got?’

‘Special’ wasn’t quite the word, he thought. There was an atmosphere of dread here, conjured by something more than the darkness. Maybe this is just how it was in the Dark Times, he told himself – but had trouble hearing as his every instinct was yelling danger in a variety of pitches.

He glanced behind to see Brian watching him, the pale glow of his eyes like nightlights in the gloom. ‘The interference increases outside your ship. But having studied the tracker, Mr Ball advises we take this passage.’

‘After you.’

They moved as quietly as they could through passages made from what looked like melted liquorice. The Doctor could feel it getting colder the further they went. The nape of his neck bristled in the strange atmosphere, and he thought uneasily of those weird background energies. But Brian, striding alongside with his translation sphere in his hand, seemed unbothered.

‘Much further?’ the Doctor asked.

‘No,’ said Brian. ‘This tunnel will shortly open out.’

Sure enough, with every step they took, the way ahead through the tunnel seemed brighter. But it wasn’t a welcoming light that shone beyond. It was blood red and softly pulsing, taking and twisting the shadows into sinister shapes.

Brian stopped and politely gestured that the Doctor go first.

With a deep breath and hands plunged in coat pockets, the Doctor swept out of the tunnel and onto a kind of rocky balcony. It stretched out in a colossal half-circle, and overlooked not a stage but an abyss – a dark drop down into nothingness, with just a tongue of rock sticking out into the space.

The far side of the chasm was sheer, smooth rock, thick with carved equations and alien script. Overlaid were lines, angles and formulae in chalk, tar, blood and who-knew-what-else. The Doctor’s mind turned in a vertiginous spin; it was like trying to take in some colossal crime scene investigation board, put together by an infinite number of detectives going mad in an infinite number of ways. Wherever you looked, lines stretched to shapes and figures and different darknesses.

‘What does it mean?’ he whispered. He wanted to understand the purpose of it all, but a hole in his sight seemed to open on each part in turn as he tried to focus, like the onset of a migraine. His teeth ached and his cells stirred and he almost laughed. It was as if trying to make sense of it all was changing him in some secret, midnight way. Here was a truth never meant to be known, and he loved the thought of that, and if he could only pin it down—

The Doctor gasped as cold rock cracked against the back of his head. He’d been brought down, laid out on the ground; Brian was straddling him, gripping him hard by the shoulders, so he fought back, bucking underneath the Ood’s body. Brian’s mouth tendrils brushed the Doctor’s face like wet seaweed and left a stinging sensation. He gasped, senses on fire while his body seized in an agonising spasm. Then the paralysis ended as Brian quickly retreated.

‘What … did you do?’ hissed the Doctor.

‘Mr Ball suggested I distract you from appraising the markings in the cavern,’ said Brian. ‘He believed your sanity was being affected.’

‘My sanity?’ Painfully, the Doctor got back up. ‘So you attacked me and …’ He spluttered. ‘What even was that you dripped on me?’

‘The tips of my mouth fronds are laced with a mild poison.’

The Doctor frowned. ‘Poison?’

‘Used in sufficient measure, it halted your fit and restored your senses.’ Brian paused. ‘I definitely knew the safe dose to administer. Definitely.’

‘Deliberately or not, you saved my life.’ The Doctor risked another squint at the markings in the cavern. ‘I think we can guess what the writings on the wall are, then, can’t we?’

‘The wellspring of the Kotturuh Design,’ Brian suggested.

‘Reckon so. A schematic for bringing suffering to the universe.’ Even from a couple more glances, the Doctor could feel the alien hieroglyphs again trying to gain footholds in his mind. ‘This has to be the Kotturuh’s sanctum sanctorum.’

Brian was suspicious. ‘Left unguarded?’

‘What’s to guard? Graffiti that drives you out of your mind? It guards itself.’ The Doctor shook his buzzing head. ‘Question is, what happens to you then?’

Brian tilted his head to one side, as if listening to something else. ‘Doctor, may I have your attention? We are not alone.’

‘Eh?’ The Doctor fell quiet. As he did so, he heard the footsteps.

They came in different sounds and sizes, scratching, slithering or beating their way slowly across the rock. A rank smell was filling the air, along with a whispering, clicking, groaning noise that slowly resolved into words: ‘…two-seven, tau, six-heaven-two, sky-alpha. Fixed. Iota. Eight-zero-zero …’

Then more words in a lower register: ‘Nine-zero-omega, four-al-hrb, one-zero-zero …’ And higher voices, different words and numbers, all carrying.

‘Speaking in tongues?’ the Doctor wondered aloud.

‘They belong to a different speaker,’ Brian informed him. ‘Although, it is the same language.’

‘That’s just the TARDIS translating.’

‘No.’ Brian held up his sphere, as if it knew better; perhaps it did. ‘Mr Ball is insistent on this point. Different creatures, but the same language. Or rather, the same kind of information.’

Before the Doctor could follow up, the first creatures came into sight, led by something tall and angular, a mass of spiky limbs and ceremonial armour – like a mantis made from rawhide and dressed in industrial machinery. ‘Two-seven, tau, six-heaven-two,’ it mumbled, ‘sky-alpha. Fixed. Iota …’ Its head perched on a broken neck, its limbs hung down by its side. Others followed, a fetid menagerie of rotting alien forms, the once-bright colours of the skin bled by the darkness, no two the same. Each of the creatures before them had bulging, pellucid eyes, but their sight seemed poor. They knocked into each other and scraped against the walls, twisted, shambling shells, muttering constantly as they stumbled forward.

Brian held out his translation sphere. ‘Mr Ball believes these life forms constitute a threat to our mission.’

‘Wait.’ The Doctor performed a sweep with the sonic, then stared at Brian. ‘I don’t think these poor creatures are life forms in any natural sense of the word. Not any more. They’re just revenants, animated in some way …’ He stepped forward and smiled at the Mantis. ‘Hello! I’m the Doctor …’

The Mantis jerked to sudden attention. It raised arms with vicious barbs and swung them down at the Doctor. He dived clear, almost knocking down Brian.

‘Fair enough,’ said the Doctor, scrambling back up, ‘they’re a threat.’

The other revenants, too, began to shake off their zombie aspects. With a creak and crunch of bone and sinew they drew upright, became more purposeful. The Doctor saw an Andalian among them. Its voice grew deeper as it chanted on: ‘…Ra-betel zero-seron-two … kaffa eight one-sky sexagesimal …’

‘I recognise the formula,’ said Brian. ‘I have been navigating by it.’

‘What?’

‘These beings are imparting precise astrotemporal information: the positioning of a planet relative to its star, its star’s position relative to its galaxy, its galaxy’s relative position in the wider universe …’

The Doctor frowned at the implications – then dodged again as another revenant lunged for him, its goliath claws swishing past his head and smashing shrapnel from the wall. ‘Come on – run!’

He darted back down the tunnel they’d taken – and ran smack into another pack of mismatched, muttering creatures, blocking the way ahead. The stench almost made him retch. ‘No good! Back the way we came.’

They dashed back to the rocky balcony overlooking the abyss. The Mantis, the Andalian and the rest shuffled forward hungrily.

Brian unleashed crackles of energy from his translation sphere, and the Mantis was made more macabre in a halo of electric light. But a tentacle lashed out from somewhere in the scrum and knocked the ball from Brian’s hand. It swung from the cable attached to the Ood’s mouth, jerking his head aside – which was the only reason he avoided a further tentacled blow. The Doctor grabbed his arm and dragged him into a further run as the revenants kept coming, their jumble of coordinates growing louder.

‘It’s like they’re drawing strength from the words,’ the Doctor panted.

‘I believe it is no coincidence that the Andalian is reciting the recent orbital position of Andalia.’

‘What?’

‘Mr Ball set most similar coordinates for our arrival there this morning.’

‘Describing the exact time the Kotturuh descended …?’ The Doctor glanced back, saw the two packs merge into one horrifying mob. ‘That’s it, then! The Kotturuh Design! Each creature a part of it, reciting the position of its world when the Kotturuh descended.’

‘Or when they will descend,’ Brian told him. ‘One is reciting the position its planet will be in many years from now—’

Brian stopped short as they nearly ploughed straight into another party of the revenants. Hissing, clicking and whispering, the creatures shambled from the dark with a graveyard-stink and pale, glowing eyes. A gargoyle-like animal with two sets of arms grabbed Brian’s leg with vicious talons, but the Doctor kicked it clear. He turned back desperately – but the Mantis was almost on top of them, leading the other mob, claws and pincers raised to cut down and kill.

‘Side tunnel,’ Brian announced, and ducked into darkness.

The Doctor used his sonic as a torch, brilliant blue lighting the way.

Soon that light was playing over bare rock.

‘Backs to the wall, then,’ the Doctor said quietly.

Brian drew himself to his full height. He smoothed down his rumpled jacket and stood beside the Doctor, facing the pack.

The gargoyle, still muttering, was leading the advance now, four sets of talons ready to rake through flesh and bone. What had begun as a slow, stubborn stumble was ending in an over-cranked frenzy of misplaced limbs as the gibbering revenants packed out the tunnel. The stench was overpowering. The Doctor looked around wildly, incantations filling his ears with babbling echoes, but there was nowhere to run, and nothing the sonic could do as the living dead closed in.

Chapter Seven

‘We surrender!’ the Doctor shouted, but the revenants kept coming. ‘By the Kotturuh code, you have no right to kill us – we are outside the Kotturuh Design!’

Brian held up his translation sphere like a charm against witchcraft. ‘I believe a creature animated by the Kotturuh can kill anything it chooses.’

If I die, I’ll regenerate, the Doctor thought, and maybe I’ll have enough residual energy to let us fight our way through or maybe I won’t. The Mantis claw closed clumsily on his throat as the revenants pressed in. He felt it tighten, and all he could think was, I. Don’t. Want. To—

With a fizz of energy, a luminous robot the size of a tank burst from nowhere, appearing right in the middle of the revenants. It hit the ground running on huge caterpillar tracks, trapping bodies beneath it as it trundled forward. The revenants fell as the robot rumbled through the ranks, and the Mantis was knocked reeling away by the sudden stir of bodies.

The Doctor stared. ‘Doesn’t look like Kotturuh technology …’

As the tank bore down on them, ready to crush them into the rock, Brian thrust out Mr Ball. Crackles of energy flooded through the metalwork. Inches from the Doctor’s legs, the tank stalled, shifted gears and swung round, spluttering and whining like a beast at bay.

‘It may not be our taxi but I’m taking it anyway!’ The Doctor jumped nimbly onto the huge machine and clung on as Brian climbed up beside him. Jerking back and forth, the tank smashed and scraped against the wall where the two of them had been pinned moments earlier. A kind of turret rose up from the body of the tank and rotated around as if getting a 360-view. The Doctor changed a setting on the sonic then almost slipped and fell as the machine reversed at speed into the gibbering throng. He saw the unfortunates who’d been run down were getting back up despite their injuries, no trace of pain, or feeling at all.

And straight away they were back, coming for the Doctor and Brian.

The barbed gargoyle thing extended a mottled, segmented stinger from its back, ready to strike at Brian – the feverish movement at odds with the dull drone of its voice: ‘…Betel asha … tisa-two-erba-zero-sebe thalathun …’ But then a glittering drill-bit as thick as a forearm whirled out from inside the robot and scored a bloodless hole right through the gargoyle’s segmented tail.

‘Diamond core extractor!’ the Doctor shouted, pressing the sonic to the side of the robot. ‘This is a mining machine.’ The sonic buzzed, and the tank lurched into a higher gear, steering wildly through the throng until it broke free of the hordes and rumbled back down along the tunnel – dragging the impaled gargoyle along with it.

‘I’ve hijacked the controls,’ the Doctor shouted, fighting to stay out of reach of the gargoyle which was still swinging its bladed claws. ‘See if I can drive us straight back to the TARDIS.’

Brian crushed up close against him to avoid the gargoyle’s thrashing limbs. ‘We have failed to locate Estinee …’

‘Perhaps this thing can help us!’ the Doctor yelled back.

Veering wildly through the gloom, dragging the thrashing revenant behind them, the Doctor saw writhing shadows form in the air around the vast arena. Kotturuh were starting to assemble – to observe or to act? Desperately the Doctor swerved away from them into the tunnel. ‘Come on, come on, not far now …’

The machine jerked to a halt and hurled them clear like a bucking bronco. The Doctor went head over heels while Brian was sent tumbling against the wall.

‘Whoever was operating it, they’ve taken back control!’ The Doctor watched as the mining machine and its struggling gargoyle shone together in glow-worm light.

The turret of the machine flipped open and a girl’s head with wild hair like seagrass peeped out from inside.

‘Estinee!’ the Doctor shouted. How’d she gotten in there?

The girl ducked back down inside as the storm of golden light grew fiercer about her. Then the machine vanished, and only the echoes of the revenant’s voice lingered in the darkness: ‘… seven-gamma-asha … betel asha … tisa-two-erba …’

‘Teleport.’ The Doctor scrambled up. ‘Must’ve pushed through that same worn spot in the shield we did, where the Kotturuh ships slip through.’

‘The child was our target,’ Brian tutted. ‘Mr Ball’s professional pride is hurt.’

‘It’s Estinee getting hurt I’m worried about.’ The Doctor heard the whisper and whirl of Kotturuh taking solid shape from out of the air. He dragged Brian up and started off again along the tunnel. ‘Come on, we’ve got to get to the TARDIS before we’re noticed, and track that teleport trace.’

‘And take revenge,’ Brian suggested.

‘No. Take care of Estinee.’

‘Permanently?’

‘Not that kind of taking care …’

They reached the TARDIS and pushed inside the turquoise churn of the vast interior. The Doctor scanned for power signatures, spied the transmat trail. He spun a dial and reached for the dematerialisation lever.

The veiled, embroidered bulk of a Kotturuh appeared beside him. The Doctor tried to recoil but his body wouldn’t move.

‘We warned you, little one,’ came the grave whisper, as a grey, glittering hand reached out for his neck. ‘You believe you can steal from us?’

‘I …’ The Doctor gritted his teeth, panting out the words with all his strength. ‘I came … to save a life.’

‘The child? She was brought here because the Kotturuh revere life.’

‘Sure you do,’ said the Doctor, ‘the same way a vivisectionist reveres rats.’

‘Little foolish knight, your mind has brushed our Design. Now you can be useful to us.’ As if to emphasise its words, the Kotturuh’s hand closed on the Doctor’s windpipe. ‘You will learn of the gift of Death …’

Then the Kotturuh was gone. The TARDIS engines were harrumphing with conviction. Brian stood with his hand on the dematerialisation lever, watching him closely.

‘What happened?’ Brian asked. ‘Mr Ball suspected a seizure of some kind.’

The Doctor rubbed his throat. You could say I was seized, he tried to say. But while his lips were moving, different words and numbers were dragging themselves from his bruised throat. He tried to swallow them back.

‘Betel four-seron-four … What? kaffa four-four-sky betel … What? ’

‘Astrotemporal coordinates?’ Brian queried.

‘The Kotturuh. One of them was here.’

‘In the TARDIS? Are you sure?’

‘I’m sure.’

‘I did not observe—’

‘Betel four-seron …’ The Doctor sat up in a snap. ‘Astronavigational coordinates. Like the ones the revenants were babbling?’

‘Exactly so. Betel four-seron-four kaffa four-four-sky betel …’ Brian paused. ‘I will need to check the figures to be precise. But I believe they refer to the position of the planet Andalia in around two or three weeks from now.’

‘But the Kotturuh already went to Andalia,’ the Doctor protested. ‘It’s been invaded. Repurposed, laid waste to, shattered.’

‘It has.’ Brian inclined his head regretfully. ‘You haven’t.’

Second Interlude

Rose woke from haunted dreams to find a ghost had come with her: a dark figure, watching from the shadows at the end of her bed.

For a second, feverish still, she remembered her dream. Death – the big man with the dark cloak and scythe – he’d come for her, he’d followed her out of the nightmares.

‘No,’ Rose breathed. ‘I won’t go. Not now, after everything we’ve …’ Then she realised Death didn’t have ears that stuck out that way, and that the black robe was really a leather jacket and the curve of the scythe was that big, beaming grin as the figure stepped into the light.

‘’Ullo, Rose! You’re awake, fantastic.’

‘Is it? Think I’m better off out of it.’ She smiled back at the Doctor, couldn’t help herself, however bad she felt. ‘I must look like death.’

‘Oh, yeah,’ he assured her.

‘Yeah, well, so did you a minute ago. Standing there at the end of the bed.’

‘Ta very much.’

‘I was dreaming about it …’ Rose trailed off. ‘Oi. Were you watching me sleep?’

‘No!’ the Doctor protested. ‘I was poking your feet and yelling at you to wake up. About time you took some notice.’

She saw the frown in that big lugubrious face he tried so hard to smile through, felt its weight. ‘I remember … when I was a kid. There’s a story, isn’t there? Death standing at the end of a bed.’

‘Brothers Grimm,’ the Doctor agreed. ‘Godfather Death!’

‘I might’ve been dreaming about it,’ she said. ‘How’d it go?’

‘Cheery little bedtime tale, that one. Still, you are in bed, and there’s time …’ He sat down at the foot of the bed, rubbed the back of his neck. ‘There was this tailor. Twelve kids. Thirteenth on the way. And he was poor – so poor he couldn’t feed another hungry mouth.’

‘Sounds like this guy on the estate,’ Rose said. ‘He was falsely claiming, though, he only had four …’

The Doctor went on with his story, about how the tailor came to choose Death as his son’s godfather. ‘Death was quite flattered, as it goes. No one had asked him anything like this.’

Rose pulled a face. ‘Funny, that.’

‘So he said: “You know what? Sure! I’ll be your boy’s godfather. He’ll want for nothing.”’

‘Death’s gonna bring down the vibe at the kid’s birthday parties, though, isn’t he?’

The Doctor shot her a look. ‘D’you want me to tell this story or not?’

‘Sorry,’ said Rose. ‘I do. Go on.’

‘Death was as good as his word, the kid and his family wanted for nothing. And when the kid was eighteen, Death came and said, “Right, then. You’re going to be—”’

‘An undertaker!’

‘You’re gonna be a doctor,’ said the Doctor quietly. ‘A very great, fantastic doctor. No medical school for you, big guy. Just take this gift from me, this herb – you’ll do well for others, and for yourself. And his godson says, “How does it work?” And Death says, “OK, here’s the trick.”’ The Doctor paused, stared into space. ‘There’s always a trick.’

‘Well?’ Rose prompted.

‘Death says to the boy: “When you’re called to a patient on their deathbed, look for me. If you see me standing at the head of the bed, give them some of that herb – you’ll cure them. If you see me standing at the foot of the bed, there’s nothing you can do – it’s their time to die. Look for me in this way and you’ll never make the wrong call. You’ll grow famous and respected. Always right.”’

Rose was doubtful. ‘He’s tricking him, isn’t he?’

‘Nope. Death had told it straight. The tailor’s son grew famous; live or die, he always called it.’ The Doctor looked at her. ‘Then the King got sick and called him to his royal bedchamber. He was a much-loved king, well worth saving, and the son was well chuffed to have such a famous patient. But Death was standing at the foot of the bed.’

Rose sucked in a breath. ‘Bye, bye, King.’

‘You’d think. But the tailor’s son, says, “No – this isn’t right. I want to save him, I know best.” And so, what does he do? He shifts the bed round, one-eighty degrees. Now Death’s standing at the head of the bed, not the foot, and the tailor’s son gives the King the herb and he gets better.’

‘Ohhh, Death’s not gonna like that,’ Rose predicted.

‘Death’s like, “What the hell was that? That could’ve been a fixed point in time. You don’t mess with that.”’

‘That sounds like you talking now,’ said Rose quietly.

‘“Don’t try and trick me again, godson”,’ the Doctor went on. ‘“It won’t end well.”’ He paused, looked down at his hands. ‘Well, the doctor stuck to the rules, but then the King’s lovely daughter got sick. Really sick. And the King says to the tailor’s son: “If you cure her, I’ll give you her hand in marriage.”’

Rose snorted. ‘Don’t ask your daughter first, King, will you?’

‘Anyway, the tailor’s son goes to the Princess, who’s very beautiful, probably, and he falls in love. Boom! Just like that. And then he sees his godfather, Death. Standing there. By the foot of the bed.’ The Doctor was staring into space. ‘Waiting to claim her.’

‘Well?’ Rose nudged him. ‘What happens next?’

Chapter Eight

The Doctor was trying not to think of the jumble of words and numbers that kept bubbling up through his memories. He told himself: You’re the master of your own fate. Of everyone’s fate, if you choose to be. You’ve never fitted in with someone else’s pattern, and you’re not going to now.

Then he thought of the ancient Andalian, cross-legged in the Tombs of the Ended. The one who’d called talk of the Kotturuh, ‘Scare-stories.’

Perhaps there was some truth in that? The Doctor had given himself a full diagnostic check-over. There was no kind of chronolock. No evidence of genetic tampering. Only traces of Kotturuh DNA on his throat from where it had gripped him, and the spatio-temporal coordinates. Some sort of autosuggestion, he supposed; simple enough technique. Well, he’d make sure to steer clear of Andalia. Why would he ever want to go back?

I’m a Time Lord, the Doctor told himself. Whatever relationship the Kotturuh have with Death and changing form, mine goes back further.

‘Mr Ball has located the source of the transmat beam!’ Brian declared, pointing to a tumbling rock on the scanner. ‘An asteroid in deep space beyond this star system.’

The Doctor came over to take a closer look. In a way, the Dark Times were not well named; the image of space was not uniform black, pricked with stars as in his age. It was clumpy, with stars of so many colours ranged across the void in ragged streamers. Distant galaxies were still close enough to be seen unaided, haunting the void like eerie phantoms.

Mind shying from the image, he focused on the asteroid and noticed something like a golden bud stuck to one side of the rock. He scanned closer. ‘It’s a spacecraft. Mid-sized freighter by the looks of it, hugging that asteroid to avoid Kotturuh detection. Let’s drop in on them, shall we?’

‘A logical next step.’ Brian regarded him. ‘Are you feeling any ill effects?’

‘Whoa!’ The Doctor jumped as a twisted, hideous figure suddenly rose into view before them on the screen. A snarl was fixed on its grey, stone-like face, claws extended towards them like a starving beast reaching for meat. But this was no attack. The creature was tumbling slowly in the void.

‘Our friend the gargoyle from Mordeela,’ the Doctor realised. ‘It must’ve escaped … or been thrown overboard.’

‘Perhaps the child caught hold of it in error,’ said Brian.

‘What coordinates was it repeating?’

‘Mr Ball believes it was, Betel asha tisa-two-erba-zero-sebe thalathun.’

The Doctor tapped the data into the TARDIS systems and checked the readout. ‘Planet called Turska Gordansis. Datepoint … some six months from now.’

The body grew transparent and seemed to gust away in impossible winds.

‘The Kotturuh?’ Brian suggested awkwardly, as if naming a former lover in front of a spouse. ‘Reclaiming what’s theirs?’

‘Nothing’s theirs.’ The Doctor flicked some switches and the materialisation motors shook through the ship. ‘I just hope Estinee’s all right.’

He stepped out into a rusty cargo hold, lit by fierce white lights. The mining machine was parked on a transport pad, a hatch open in the side. There was a compartment hidden inside, large enough to hide a child. Crystals spilled out from the hatchway.

‘Not just extracting Estinee, then,’ the Doctor murmured, picking up a handful of crystals. ‘They really were mining.’

Brian’s attention was taken by something else. A nameplate. ‘This is the Polythrope,’ he said. ‘The ship owned by Professor Fallomax.’

‘She’s getting the old act back together,’ the Doctor breathed. ‘Let’s go softly, till we learn what’s what.’

Estinee sat slumped in a seat in the Polythrope’s control deck, sipping warm berryjuice. The relief of hearing the motors of the mining robot coming down the tunnel towards her! She’d been terrified that the Kotturuh would find it slipping through their shields this time and destroy it before she could crawl inside for cover. And then, when the Doctor had taken control of the machine, she’d felt for sure that she was dead. If Fallomax hadn’t reasserted remote control and teleported her out …

The random blinking of the lights and the turn of the drive spools were a comforting mechanical lullaby after all she’d been through on Mordeela. She also took a strange, arm’s-length comfort from Fallomax’s souvenirs of home – the intricate patterns of the mats hanging from the walls, the carvings and the ceremonial knick-knacks ranged along the consoles … They made the confines of their shared space a little homelier.

Estinee understood the need to hold on to things that were lost. She still had her doll, sat in a dusty corner waiting for a harvest party that would never happen. I’m too old for dolls, she told herself as usual. But she smiled at the doll all the same and imagined it smiled back.

The only flicker of happiness had come when she’d shrugged off her Lifeshroud at last. It sat in a heap at her feet, and she felt so much lighter. But still she was cold, with a shivering she knew would stay with her for days. Just the touch of the Kotturuh left her feeling that way.

Professor Fallomax was programming her computer. Her pale violet skin glowed in the glare of the screen, and over her black jumpsuit she wore the original, bulkier Lifeshroud, its cables cobwebbing her limbs. Like a picket fence half lost in overgrown land, she wore a coronet of wire and crystal over her crimson hair and the high slope of her forehead. Depending on her mood, Fallomax called this Lifeshroud ‘my hiding place’ or ‘my prison’. Estinee was just grateful it worked. If the Kotturuh had tracked down Fallomax, they’d have killed her – and Estinee might have stayed lost on Mordeela for ever.

‘Did you wait for me?’ she asked Fallomax.

‘Sure I did. Waiting for you my whole life, kid.’ Fallomax had brought up a solar system schematic on the screen; the lines of orbit made reflected halos around the double-iris in each of her eyes.

‘On Andalia, I mean. Did you wait for me?’

‘Well, I had to take off. You’d been kidnapped. The Kotts were coming. I couldn’t risk them finding me, could I? I tried to fix the teleport on your Lifeshroud but it wouldn’t respond …’

Estinee kicked the ’Shroud. ‘You should fix that.’

‘I will. Now, our friend the gargoyle is indeed from Turska Gordansis … out in the Dekmar Wastes. Attack coming in … six months or so?’

‘Yeah.’ Estinee slumped further back in her seat. ‘You wanted me to get caught by the Kotts again, didn’t you. So I could find you more dates for shifting Lifeshrouds.’

‘You think I like risking Kott contact – even with a customised mining robot? Anyway, we’ve already got two shows upcoming.’ Fallomax tapped on a planet showing just at the edge of her screen, and data flowed across it. ‘But now Turska Gordansis can slot in just before Panhelion. The systems are a good distance apart, with luck the Panhelions won’t hear a thing of how it goes on TG …’ She looked sideways at Estinee. ‘Course, it is a shame you couldn’t bring back any more Kott victims so we can really rack up those dates …’

‘I tried. But I never thought the Doctor would come looking for me.’ Estinee thought of the white-headed creature with the wormy mouth beside him. ‘I had to try and help him. Him and that thing …’

‘I don’t know why your Doctor’s come sticking his nose in, but he can take it out again.’ Fallomax was only half listening, Estinee knew – lost in the scrolling green data on the screen. ‘Ah, good. There’s been a lot of Death Fear on TG. And each continental empire would sell out the others for some kind of advantage …’ She looked up, stared into space – quite literally – through the cockpit windows. ‘After you’ve demonstrated Lifeshroud a few times around the planet, demand ought to build—’

‘No way. No more than one demo per planet!’

‘Orders are never so good on a video. They miss the theatre of it.’

‘It. Hurts.’

‘I know, I know. Fine. One show. Just make it a good one.’ Fallomax was back staring at data on the screen. ‘We’ll have to check how quickly TG can raise funds for outer-world credit. If we time it right, we should be able to take payment for Lifeshrouds and the crystals to power them before the Kotts come swooping in, so we don’t miss out like on Andalia …’

‘Excuse me, Professor Fallomax?’

The voice came from behind them. Fallomax jumped and swore while Estinee yelped.

A familiar pinstriped figure, gaunt and dishevelled, stood in the cockpit doorway with the Ood beside him. ‘I’m the Doctor, this is Brian.’

‘Surprise,’ said Brian, attempting an evil inflection.

Fallomax was floored. ‘Where did you …? What are you …?’

‘What am I? Right now? Hmm.’ The Doctor pretended to think about it. ‘Angry. Yeah, angry about sums me up.’

‘I can’t have people on my ship.’ Fallomax started scrabbling in a drawer. ‘Leave my ship.’

‘Same way as your Very Important Gargoyle from Turska Gordansis left it – straight overboard? No, thanks. And I wouldn’t go for a weapon either, if I were you.’

Fallomax turned, holding a small bronze pistol. A crackle of energy burst from the sphere the Ood cupped in its hand and the pistol was knocked to the floor.

‘Told you. Leave it there.’ The Doctor seemed to be talking to both Brian and Fallomax. Then he looked at Estinee. ‘Are you all right?’

‘Yes,’ she said simply. ‘The Professor got me a ride—’

Fallomax shot her a look. ‘Keep out of this, Estinee.’

‘Oh, I’m sure she’d love to,’ said the Doctor, stepping forward. ‘But you haven’t given her much of a chance, have you – demonstrating the power of your wonderful product wherever you go? Only now we know what you’ve really been up to, don’t we?’

‘We do, Doctor,’ Brian agreed graciously.

‘At first, I thought the Kotturuh followed you to the worlds you brought your show to – striking before the populations have the chance to get their Lifeshrouds working. But it’s the other way round, isn’t it?’ The Doctor looked at Fallomax, and the anger had gone, replaced with a disappointment that was somehow worse. ‘You find out where the Kotturuh are headed, and get there just ahead of them. Peddling your Lifeshrouds to the masses, playing on their fears, giving them hope … Taking their cash knowing full well they won’t live long enough to use them.’

Fallomax looked down at her pistol on the floor. ‘You don’t know a thing about me, or Lifeshroud—’

‘So, tell me, what d’you do, circle back when the dust has settled? Gather up your Lifeshrouds where they dropped in the dust and stick them on the trolley ready for the next suckers? Why not? It’s only you who knows what’s coming for them, cos you let a child spy on the Kotturuh for you …’

‘Look at me!’ Fallomax gestured at her Lifeshroud bodysuit, and the crown jammed into her hair. ‘You think I wear this stuff for fun? You think I want to fund my work this way?’

‘I haven’t the first clue,’ the Doctor stormed back. ‘And I don’t know how you first came to use Estinee in your Wild Frontier Theatre show or why the Kotturuh should want to take her back to Mordeela when she’s already been judged, or how you’re able to steal stuff away from under their big veiled noses but—’

Estinee was so riveted by the anger in the Doctor’s voice – by the idea that he should actually seem to care about her welfare – that she didn’t notice Brian’s furtive movement until it was too late to react. He had taken a slender silver gun from the lining of his black jacket.

And she screamed as he fired it straight at her.

Estinee blazed bright as a sun in the gun’s energies. Brian kept his finger calmly on the trigger.

‘What the …?’ The Doctor threw himself at Brian, brought his fist down on the Ood’s arm. The gun was chopped from Brian’s grip, and he put up no resistance as the Doctor shoved him up against the wall of the cockpit, shaking with fury. ‘Why would you do that?’ Fearing what he would see, he turned first to Fallomax – who had fallen back in her chair with her hands shielding her eyes – and then to Estinee herself.

She lay like a broken doll in the tattered remains of her linen jumpsuit. Her skin had been burned glossy-red. It was veined with ash.

He tightened his grip on Brian’s shoulders. ‘She wasn’t wearing the Lifeshroud!’

‘And yet,’ Brian panted through his red morass of fronds, ‘she is breathing.’

The Doctor turned, watched, incredulous, as Estinee started to shiver and twitch. He let go of Brian and crossed to her. The angry glare of her skin was fading already, just as it had on Andalia.

‘She’s alive. Healing.’ The Doctor looked at Fallomax. ‘She’s not wearing the Lifeshroud …’

‘Mr Ball has reached a conclusion, Doctor, ’ said Brian quietly. ‘It is not the Lifeshroud that cheats death. It’s Estinee. She does it herself.’

Chapter Nine

‘Medicapsule, Professor.’ The Doctor’s voice shook as he lifted Estinee in his arms. ‘You must have one on board.’

‘Yes, last room astern,’ she said. ‘You don’t need to worry about Estinee, she’ll be all right—’

‘I suppose this must happen a lot,’ the Doctor said icily. ‘All part of the medicine show. Lifeshroud is the Dark Times’ equivalent of snake oil – a useless “cure-all” tonic sold to the gullible, the desperate – the dying, though they don’t even know it.’

‘It will save lives,’ Fallomax protested. ‘It’s not a magic cure against all death but it will keep them safe from the Kotturuh. I’ve got more of the Mordeela crystals now, I just need time and funding to—’

‘Shut up, you’ll keep. Now, you.’ The Doctor swung his attention threateningly back to Brian. ‘One thing, and make it good. How did you know you wouldn’t kill her for real?’

‘Intuition on my part. Observation on Mr Ball’s.’ Brian shrugged slightly. ‘When I fired upon her on the stage, she tried to work the Lifeshroud’s transmat. It seemed to me that the entire circuit was jammed, and yet cellular regeneration still took place. She is the miracle here, not the technology.’

‘You didn’t know for certain.’

‘I am certain now. There had to be a reason why the Kotturuh would confine her to Mordeela when she’s already been judged. She is a freak of nature – a child immune to their touch. Immune to death.’

The Doctor pushed past him, rushing Estinee to the medicapsule, a large brass coffin-shaped affair set into a pink, stuccoed alcove. Dark Times! He could’ve laughed: the beautiful improbability of a child naturally immune to death; these days deserved to be called the Brightest Times Of All. But of course, always, there were creatures like the Kotturuh wanting to take something so miraculous, so wonderful, and drag it down into the dirt and darkness, try to break it or suppress it. Angrily he kicked a green button on the side of the medicapsule and its lid swung open. He laid Estinee down in it and hit the heal cycle.

Then the ship pitched under some great impact, throwing him against the wall. The whushhh of the ship’s systems was replaced moments later by the froufrou swank of an extremely irritating alarm.

‘What’s happening?’ the Doctor cried.

‘Something just burned away our cover,’ Fallomax shouted.

‘The asteroid has been destroyed,’ Brian confirmed.

The Doctor ran back. Every light and gauge in the room was glowing purple. Indicator needles jumped as if in time to a skipping pulse. Chunks of rubble floated past the cockpit window.

‘Unidentified ship, closing fast,’ said Fallomax.

‘Kotturuh?’ said the Doctor.

‘Can’t tell,’ said Fallomax, ‘scanners are out.’

A low clanging rumble rang through the Polythrope.

‘Whoever they are, they’re going to board,’ said Brian, the silver gun back in his grip. He hurried away back towards the cargo bay.

‘No time to get us all into the TARDIS …’ The Doctor scooped up the bronze pistol from the floor and looked at Fallomax. ‘You and I are going to have a talk. But first things first.’ He pressed the pistol into her grip. ‘Stay with Estinee.’

Then he turned and ran after Brian through the mauve shadows of the Polythrope. He found the Ood back in the cargo bay, shifting the mining machine in front of the filigree airlock shutters to form a barrier.

The Doctor pulled out his sonic and buzzed the doors – just as they began to rumble open. ‘No good, can’t keep them locked. That ship must’ve hacked the security protocols …’

‘Take cover?’ Brian gestured behind the mining machine as if it were a place set for dinner.

‘Let’s try some diplomacy,’ the Doctor suggested, as two humanoid creatures in thick, yellow protective suits and bulbous space helmets ducked under the barrier, ornate rifles in their many-fingered grip. ‘Hello! I’m the Doctor and it’s not my ship either. Perhaps we should put down the guns and talk?’

The two guards hesitated. Brian shot them and they fell back screaming in an intense burst of light.

‘Excellent diplomacy, Doctor,’ Brian said.

‘You killed them?’

‘I am an assassin.’ He fired a third energy blast that cut down the next guard too.

‘Stop it!’ The Doctor wrestled the gun off him. ‘No one’s paying you!’

‘On the contrary, good Doctor. I am paying him. So I’d thank him to stop eliminating my troops!’

The Doctor and Brian turned as the door finished rising. A hairy, misshapen blob with a single eye, the size of a Shetland pony, perched on three fleshy tails. It was no hologram this time, but the real, living—

‘High Ambassador Chalskal!’ The Doctor stared. ‘How’d you find us?’

‘I believe Brian referred to it as Snoop DNA? I surreptitiously light-scanned a good deal into his own system so I could follow your progress.’

Brian bristled. ‘I was about to say that Mr Ball and I apologise for terminating your employees. However …’

‘Your efficiency is commended,’ Chalskal said, waving the matter away, and swung himself forward. ‘As High Ambassador of Skalithai and Standing Throne-Being of the Pan-Victis Defensive Alliance, I offer you this formal bow of appreciation for the success of your mission.’

‘Chalskal?’ Fallomax stepped forward from the shadow of the hold, her hands raised. ‘Verv-Hoondai Chalskal?’ Estinee followed just behind her, still badly burned but with eyes shining, gripping on to a doll.

Brian announced them like the MC at a formal banquet: ‘Professor Hana Fallomax, Ambassador. And the child of Destran, Estinee.’

‘Indeed.’ With a hiss of either aggression or satisfaction, Chalskal deepened the angle of his bow. ‘I have been investigating your Lifeshroud for some time, Professor. A most ingenious invention.’

‘Except it doesn’t work,’ said the Doctor. ‘It’s a sham.’

‘Sham?’ Chalskal’s stub of a body twitched and his single eye narrowed. ‘But … I need the Lifeshroud!’

‘More than you think,’ murmured Estinee.

‘Professor,’ Chalskal growled, ‘if this is true, then you are guilty of the wilful misleading of whole populations.’

‘Without funding, I can’t—’

‘For the wilful misleading of me!’ he squeaked.

‘Oh, really.’ Fallomax put her hands on her hips. ‘Aren’t you wondering how I’ve heard of you, Ambassador?’

‘You have heard of me by reputation, no doubt, as every criminal in creation must have heard of—’

‘Nope. Wrong.’ Fallomax shook her head. ‘I know you work for the President of Skalithai. Well, her office shut down every approach I made to tell them about the Lifeshroud. I gave up in the end. Can’t win them all …’

‘Fallomax,’ said the Doctor worriedly. ‘What are you saying?’

‘It’s what one of the revenants was saying,’ Estinee put in. ‘Nine-zero-omega, four-al-hrb, one-zero-zero. I heard those words on Mordeela, years ago, from the mouth of one of your race. She wore red robes and had many tails.’

‘My predecessor, Frey-Gye? The former High Ambassador? She went missing the day the first phantoms were seen in our skies, many years ago. There were rumours that the Kotturuh had …’ Chalskal twitched again as he ran the figures into his tiny personal organiser. ‘The date you give, that’s …’

‘That’s precisely two weeks, two days and eleven hours. On that date, the Kotturuh will come to Skalithai, to judge seven billion souls.’

The words sank in heavy silence.

‘The end of the world?’ Chalskal whimpered.

‘It’s happening,’ said Estinee.

‘No.’ The Doctor shoved his hands in his pockets and shook his head. ‘I’m not having it.’

‘And yet Lifeshroud for the masses is a sham,’ said Brian.

‘It can be made to work,’ Fallomax insisted.

‘In time? Before my world is destroyed?’ Chalskal was no longer pompous or sinister, but crumpled.

The Doctor looked around at the sea of desolate faces in the room. This was one of those moments where the universe turned. He could just go. He didn’t need to be here. He didn’t need to interfere. These people lived in a whole other age. Not his fight. Not his business.

‘Oh, we’re going to make it work, Professor,’ the Doctor beamed. ‘Not hiding out in some rock in space, burning through the cash from your snake-oil scamming. We’re going to stop the Kotturuh by building a working Lifeshroud. For real.’

Third Interlude

The dusts of Moslin blew in the low breeze, covering all tracks. It was as if he’d just dropped in from the sky. And I suppose I did, thought the Doctor. Moslin Town was still some distance away, and he sat in the mouth of a desert cave, appreciative of the shade.

The Doctor looked at the man in the dark cloak sitting beside him. Curious choice to wear black in a desert, even with sun-barriers. Was it a fashion choice, or more than that? Was he a celebrity or a truant, wanting to dodge detection? There was something off with his story about the woman he’d come here with, sleeping lightly beside him, but the Doctor supposed he’d get to the bottom of things in time. He usually did.

The Doctor was in his eighth body, now, and he felt it suited him. He’d always liked the way humans drew an ‘8’ because if you tipped it on its side it showed ‘infinity’. So, whenever and wherever he lay down, the Doctor thought about the infinity of coincidences that had guided him there. It was a kind of counting sheep, he supposed. Rest had never come easy to him; he did his best to keep out of its way. His companion had stayed sitting up, so maybe he wasn’t fond of rest either.

‘You look like Death, Brian,’ the Doctor said conversationally.

‘I look like any other of my species.’

‘No, no, I mean you look like a representation of Death. You’ve got the big black cloak, you just need a scythe …’ The Doctor smiled sadly. ‘I guess, death’s never something you can really dress up.’

‘You are a doctor,’ said Brian. ‘You do not carry a stethoscope.’

‘Told you, I’m the Doctor. I don’t listen to hearts, I feel them.’ He tapped out the double pulse on his knees, leaned back against the wall. ‘Look at us, the Doctor and Death. Reminds me of a story from Earth. Brothers Grimm. About this tailor who had many children, and his thirteenth was a girl. He decided to find a godfather to help raise the girl, and he soon ran into Death …’

Brian listened to the story as the Doctor told it, nodding his head now and then to signal his attention was being held. The Doctor was glad and went on with the tale. He liked it; he’d told it before and doubtless would again.

‘So, the doctor knows the rules, now. She can’t cheat Death.’

‘In the end, no one can.’

‘If she tried, Death had said it would go badly for her. But then the King’s lovely daughter gets sick. Really sick. And the King tells the doctor: “If you cure her, I’ll give you her hand in marriage.”’

‘Her severed hand?’

‘It’s an expression. Anyway, the tailor’s daughter goes to the Princess, who’s very beautiful, probably. And they fall in love, as some are wont to do.’

‘So I have heard.’

‘And then the lovestruck young doctor sees her godfather, Death, standing there. By the foot of the Princess’s bed. Waiting to claim her. And despite the warnings, the doctor knows she has to save her.’ He stood up and struck a heroic pose. ‘“I’m the greatest, most fantastic doctor in the world,” she says. “I can do anything.”’

‘And I suppose she turns the bed around.’

‘Have you heard this story before?’

Brian paused. ‘I have encountered people before.’

The Doctor nodded. ‘Well, she does, she turns the bed around. And now Death’s stood at the head of the bed so when the doctor gives the Princess the herbs, whaddyaknow! The Princess is cured.’

‘Godfather Death was alarmingly lax when it came to closing loopholes.’

‘Not any longer.’ The Doctor sighed. ‘This doctor had disobeyed a direct instruction from Death not to interfere. Yeah, she saved the Princess, but Death took a hold of her arm and said, “I warned you. You must come with me.”’

‘And where did Death take her?’

‘To a cavern. A huge, long, low cavern that stretched for miles, and everywhere you looked there was a candle. Some were tall and tapering, others little more than blobs of wax, the flame sputtering ready to go out. And Death told the doctor, “Each of these candles represents a life. And when the candle snuffs out, that life is ended.” And he points to a stubby little thing and he says, “This is your candle.” “No, please, Godfather,” says the doctor. “Don’t let my candle burn down. You can light another for me. I will love you and honour you and never disobey you again.” But Death just reached out his hand. That little flame was so bright, so strong, but when his bony fingers pinched out the wick it went out the same as all the others. And the doctor … she fell down dead. So much promise, come to nothing.’

There was a shudder from inside the black cloak, as if Brian were laughing. ‘I discern the point of the story,’ he said. ‘Each life has an allotted span, and any attempt to defy Death is doomed to failure. Death will not be cheated.’

‘What? Nah! Course Death can be cheated.’ The Doctor sat back down. ‘You’ve just got to keep moving afterwards. Make sure Death never catches up with you. And if Death does, make sure you’ve got something more than your arm up your sleeve.’

‘Death is not an enemy or a failure. It is simply the wax stamp at the end of Life’s contract. It is hubris to believe you are right to prolong life.’

‘It’s a surrender not to try. You can keep trying to stamp that wax on the contract if you like, Brian. I’ll keep looking for escape clauses.’ The Doctor lay back, stared into infinite space, wondering what was waiting for him across the parched dust of the desert outside. ‘There are all kinds of ways to turn a bed around, Brian. All kinds of ways.’

Brian nodded. ‘And there are many more places that Death may stand.’

Chapter Ten

Fallomax sat in her workshop on board the Polythrope, with Estinee, the Doctor and the Ood assassin. Necessity made strange bedfellows, she supposed. And so did getting busted.

She was just glad it was only house arrest for now and not the real thing. There must be some way I can get out of all this, she thought. Some way of busting loose and starting again … again.

Chalskal had been thrown into panic by the news that his world was due to fall to the Kotturuh with no viable defence. Except, weirdly, it seemed to be the Lifeshroud’s current shortcomings that had shaken him the most. The High Ambassador had left everyone locked up together while he consulted his precious alliance and his president on a course of action.

The Doctor, who’d been pacing with his hands in his pockets, suddenly kicked the wall. ‘What’s keeping Chalskal!’ he snapped. ‘Every second we wait around here we’re losing time.’

Time, thought Fallomax. I’ve spent so long tricking people into giving me more of it. She felt a mess of emotions: a sense of guilty relief to have been discovered at last, fear now of the consequences, hope of maybe finding some way to make Lifeshroud work for real, for billions. Could she actually make a go of things? If Chalskal could actually give her proper funding … If this crazy Doctor knew just one-tenth as much as he reckoned he did …

‘Chalskal’s a total creep,’ was Estinee’s opinion. Her skin was well on the way to recovery but she kept rubbing her sticky burns like they would scratch off. ‘Did you see his face when I told him about his ambassador? He almost fell on it!’

‘I’m impressed you could recall all that astronav data,’ said the Doctor.

‘When the Kotts took me to Mordeela, I had nothing to do but listen to the revenants. I used to write their words on the walls. Learn them and sing along.’ She looked down, self-conscious. ‘Silly.’

‘Brilliant,’ Fallomax corrected her. ‘Makes you the only person in the universe with an inkling of the Kotturuh Design.’

‘A considerable asset,’ Brian declared.

‘Don’t try and butter me up after shooting me, maggot head,’ Estinee retorted. ‘You don’t know a thing about it. The Kotts said they would keep me there for ever. Drain off my life to help feed the revenants. Everyone has a place in the Design.’

The Doctor muttered some names and numbers under his breath; something to do with Andalia. Fallomax thought of their last show there, of the way she’d taken off long before Estinee could’ve made it back to the Polythrope. But if the Kotts ever find me … I’m dead. She wasn’t proud of herself for leaving, but she also wasn’t sorry. It stood to reason: first priority, number one; second priority, whoever was most useful to you.

Her eyes flicked between the Doctor and Estinee.

The Doctor caught her gaze. ‘If we’re going to make the Lifeshroud work, I’m gonna need information. What’s the deal with those crystals you took from Mordeela?’

‘They’re infused with power,’ said Fallomax. ‘I believe that Mordeela is more than just a gateway to our universe from the Kotturuh realm. It acts as a conduit, a siphon, for the energies they use to unleash their mutative change on a species.’

The Doctor raised an eyebrow. ‘You think there’s a well of energy the Kotturuh draw upon, using those crystals?’

‘If you like. A well of Death Energy. Kott bodies must generate a charge that energises those crystals. Then they direct the energy through all life on a planet in a kind of genetic wave.’

‘A wave goodbye to millions of years of natural evolution.’ The Doctor looked at her. ‘How d’you come to know so much?’

‘She’s the only survivor of the Eloii Judgement,’ said Estinee, with the air of someone who’d heard a story more than once. ‘It’s why she wears that super-sized Lifeshroud.’

‘I am not super-sized!’ Fallomax protested.

‘What was the Kotturuh Judgement on Eloii?’ asked Brian.

‘They made us short-lived and sterile so we’d die off. Eloii was given over to grasses and lichens – a clean, unpolluted world for one of their preferred races to colonise some day.’

‘Preferred races,’ Brian mused. ‘No wonder some populations try to deal with Death.’

‘How do they go about it?’ the Doctor asked Fallomax.

‘They don’t get much say. Sometimes the Kotts will visit a planet and kidnap someone important … or just a random individual.’

‘The tunnels of Mordeela are full of them,’ Estinee added.

‘Sometimes, powerful ambassadors will come to Mordeela to parley.’ Fallomax paused. ‘Not all of them leave again.’

‘Incorporated into the Kotturuh Design,’ the Doctor noted. ‘How did you survive their Judgement?’

‘Her papa was a big scientist,’ Estinee cut in, ‘and they hid in outer space running experiments on Kott crystals.’

‘Papa was an exochemist and exogeologist,’ Fallomax said, ‘part of a scientific research team who’d been analysing a weird meteor for almost a century. But Papa had heard the legends of the Kotturuh across space, and was sure the meteor was a chunk of Mordeela.’

‘Perhaps it broke off when the Kotturuh built their gateway there,’ Brian suggested.

‘Fits as well as any other theory,’ said Fallomax. ‘The crystals allow the Kotts to overturn aeons of evolution in minutes, but Papa believed that running a similar charge through the crystals in the Lifeshroud could counteract the Wave and shield the wearer from its effects.’

‘See, it’s not meant to stop you dying from just anything.’ Estinee gave Brian a sour look. ‘That’s just something we say in the fundraisers. Its real job is to protect you from Judgement.’

‘But we only had enough crystals to power one Lifeshroud.’ Fallomax patted her own protective clothing. ‘Papa chose to save me, and when the Wave caught up with him …’ She paused. ‘I wish I could say I kept working on the Kott crystals to save as many people as I could. To honour his sacrifice. But, the power drains from the crystals, and if they’re not replaced … You know?’

‘I get it,’ said the Doctor quietly. ‘What about Estinee. How’d you hook up with her?’

‘The Kotturuh made me their prisoner on Mordeela.’ Estinee grimaced. ‘Fallomax happened to run into me there – or her mining machine did at any rate, scraping out crystals from the walls.’

Brian inclined his head. ‘The Kotturuh didn’t notice you, Professor, stealing their crystals?’

‘The Kotts take no interest in anything that doesn’t live,’ said Fallomax. ‘My machine scrapes up whatever it can, and I send it in whenever I can, through those tiny punctures in the shield …’

Brian held up a hand for silence. ‘Mr Ball hears Chalskal approaching.’

A couple of seconds later, Fallomax could hear it too: springy steps slapping down on the metal walkway outside. The white plastic doors swooshed open and the warty, hairy little body swept into the hold on his three thick tails.

‘Gentlebeings,’ Chalskal began courteously. ‘May this decorous bow and my continued high diplomatic standing reward you for your patience—’

‘When can we start?’ The Doctor got to the point. ‘We’ve got to get our skates on – if we’re gonna get Lifeshrouds on your people.’

‘I’ve heard you have extremely advanced scientific facilities on Skalithai,’ said Fallomax eagerly. ‘I’m looking forward to—’

‘Out of the question.’ Chalskal cleared what passed for a throat. ‘You shall work from laboratories on board my flagship.’

‘What?’ The Doctor frowned. ‘With seven billion lives on the line?’

‘I dare not take the chance of the Kotturuh learning of your plans to counterattack,’ said Chalskal, ‘and attacking Skalithai prematurely.’

‘Mr Ball points out that the Kotturuh work to a Design,’ said Brian. ‘They are unlikely to change their schedule—’

‘I do not choose to argue with those who serve me,’ Chalskal declared. ‘The President agrees that the Functional Lifeshroud project – a project I named myself – must take place in absolute secrecy with a minimum of personnel so as not to, er, arouse suspicion.’

Fallomax looked at him. ‘We get one chance at doing this. We have to throw everything you have at this.’

‘Of course, of course,’ Chalskal agreed. ‘But in secrecy. Naturally, the laboratories are very well equipped.’ The doors slid open to reveal an entire squad of alien troops in grey protective suits. ‘There are guards waiting to escort you to your duties.’

‘Many guards,’ the Doctor observed.

At gunpoint, he, Fallomax, and Brian went with them. Holding her doll tight to her chest, Estinee followed them.

To no one in particular she whispered, ‘I told you Chalskal was a creep.’

Chapter Eleven

Days were passing and Estinee could tell that the Doctor’s mood was growing more desperate. While Fallomax experimented on improving the crystals’ energy retention, and Brian worked with Mr Ball on an abacus loom, crunching through chemical calculations (though was that all he was doing? There was always a conspiratorial air about the dapper assassin), the Doctor was following wild hunches and random leads. Unfortunately none of them had led him anywhere he’d wanted to go. And more and more, especially when concentrating, she’d hear him mutter a string of numbers and syllables under his breath – ‘kaffa four-four-sky betel …’ – and when she’d asked him about it he’d pretended to be lost in his work again.

Still, she felt happier with the Doctor than anyone else. With little to do on board Chalskal’s ship – and few areas of it open to her in any case – she’d often braved the yellow guards on the door to keep the Doctor company in the strange laboratory. It was a hot, smoky place, all bronze urns and cabinets of light, with flames that burned in many colours at the tug of a chain. The Doctor had taken equipment from his blue box, declaring it to be ‘about a thousand times better than this antique guff, no wonder it’s taken you over a century of study to get this far, Fallomax, with equipment so primitive’ and had looked at the crystals through that.

Each day she woke hoping he’d find good news in the patterns he saw. She could only ever see blurry blobs in the amber slides, but the Doctor … he could spy the universe in a speck of sugar. From the first, she’d seen something in him – a sadness and a sweetness, something to be trusted. A look that said, I’ll risk everything for you, whoever you are, and I won’t ask for a thing in return. But as the days had gone by, that look had grown harder, brooding. Eyes stared into space, and hands that used to wave about now stayed thrust deep into pockets.

‘Are you ever scared?’ she asked him.

‘Yep,’ the Doctor murmured without looking up. ‘Usually by deep conversations about feeling scared.’

‘Well, tough,’ said Estinee. ‘I’m scared. I’m scared of what happens if you and Fallomax can’t save everyone. Of the Kotturuh catching me again.’ She wiped crossly at her eyes. ‘I mean, they found me, didn’t they? Even while I was wearing my Lifeshroud.’

‘They found you by accident. It was me they came to see. At least, unless their Design told them that you’d be coming back to them?’ He sighed. ‘Wish I knew how that worked. Mordeela’s like some sort of organic computer running a prediction program on the minds of the dead …’

Estinee frowned. ‘What?’

‘If we could learn what the program was, maybe we’d find a way to corrupt it …’ The Doctor pouted. ‘Or if we could destroy the computer … or take out the operators …’

‘I thought you were meant to be making a working Lifeshroud?’

‘Well, yeah. The Lifeshroud might go some way to warding off the effects of a Kotturuh attack on the species at the top of the food chain, but the balance of life on each planet will fall out of alignment. Global warming, starvation, terror … Billions of people living at gunpoint.’

‘Yeah.’ Estinee nodded. ‘I can’t even die but I’m still so scared. All the time.’

The Doctor seemed to consider. ‘Not being scared would be worse. Because if you’re not scared, then you’ve got nothing left to lose. Even a short life is full of scary. But when it’s long, it doesn’t matter if you know you’ll survive everything you’ll ever go through. There are some days – some dark, boil-a-sun-away-to-nothing days – when you wonder if the pain is worth the keeping going.’

Estinee sensed the conversation shifting away from her. She got off her stool and stood beside him. ‘Pain?’

‘Yeah. Pain. Keeps showing up with different faces.’ The Doctor half-smiled. ‘You feel guilt over the ones who fell when you didn’t. Loss when you can’t get back to the ones you should’ve kept close. The pain of holding on because you know, despite it all, that life is meant to be lived, not just endured …’ He broke off. ‘Sorry. You’re only young. You don’t know what I mean.’

Estinee opened her mouth to say something. But she bit her tongue, and instead put her hand in his. He noticed after a few seconds, and looked at her.

‘So,’ she said, ‘the trick is to spend our days trying to live instead of trying not to die?’

‘It’s a good trick.’

‘So why do you basically run into danger any time you can?’

‘I don’t. But if I see something wrong, I try to fix it.’

‘And what if it can’t be fixed?’

The Doctor stared into the reflective surface of one of the slides. ‘Everything can be fixed,’ he insisted. ‘If you’ve got the stomach for it.’ The screwdriver thing he carried pinged and he stood up suddenly. ‘Oh! That’s the alarm. Got to see someone … about a something … somewhere.’ With a smile that barely reached his eyes, the Doctor got up and walked to the door. The two yellow guards were waiting outside. ‘Comfort break,’ he said, and pushed between them.

Estinee sat for a few moments. She’d seen the look in the Doctor’s eyes and knew that he really wasn’t afraid. Somehow, that scared her more than anything else. And she’d never seen him take a ‘comfort break’ before.

She sat alone in the empty laboratory for a minute. Then she crossed to the doorway herself and looked up at the guards. ‘I just don’t really want to be here?’

The guards looked at each other, shrugged, and let her pass.

Estinee walked through the flagship’s red and gold corridors. Everything was fancy and filigree. She missed her cabin on the Polythrope. Her room here was bigger and played pictures of natural scenes on the walls, even cropfields. But what was the point? There were no cropfields in space.

Being small, none of the guards registered her as worthy of challenge. So she wended her way down through the decks. And as she passed the steps down to the Escape Pod Deck, she saw the Doctor, half-hidden in shadow.

There you are, she thought, heart thumping heavily as she crouched beside the stairwell. Green eyes glowed in the gloom, and she realised the Doctor was talking with Brian. A secret meeting! This was a change from the norm.

‘… Chalskal has told his president nothing,’ Brian told the Doctor. ‘Nothing about the impending Kotturuh invasion, nothing about providing Lifeshrouds for its people. His “Victis Fleet” is not even owned or governed by the Alliance he claims to represent.’

‘A mercenary force,’ muttered the Doctor. ‘So that’s why we’re stuck up here instead of mobilising a planet to protect itself. Chalskal’s gone rogue.’

‘He has been assembling a private army. These mercenaries were always the intended recipients of the Lifeshrouds. He hoped to create troops who could not die …’

The Doctor nodded moodily. ‘They’re always gonna win out over your regular mortals. But the Lifeshrouds are designed to be worn against the Kotturuh, not in general warfare.’

Brian nodded. ‘I suspect the Ambassador would like to change the direction of Fallomax’s research.’

So he can conquer any planet he chooses. Estinee’s eyes opened wider. The warty little creep!

The Doctor’s expression was cold as stone. ‘Never trust anyone trying so hard to seem humble.’

Brian inclined his head. ‘I bow to the wisdom of your opinion.’

The Doctor gave him a look. ‘How’d you find out all this about Chalskal?’

Brian shook his head. ‘Mr Ball hacked into the Ambassador’s holo-diary. We read several of the speeches he has already penned in anticipation of a successful and bloodless coup.’ He paused. ‘Mr Ball also corrected minor points of grammar and spelling but with luck this won’t be noticed until we are able to act on the information.’ He paused. ‘You will act on this, Doctor?’

‘Oh, yes.’ The Doctor was shaking his head. ‘I’m not letting another planet go down. The Kotturuh must be fought.’

‘Fought?’ Brian was suddenly interested. ‘Then, the Lifeshroud is not purely defensive technology.’

‘Attack is sometimes the best form of defence.’ Did the Doctor sound defensive himself? ‘All right, back to business. We’ll discuss what we do about all this tonight after ten-bells. Come to the main lab. Scramblers on.’

‘Very well,’ said Brian.

Estinee ducked back into the shadows as the Doctor and the Ood climbed the steps and went past. They didn’t notice her. She’d learned well how to hold still and not be seen.

It was then that Estinee saw the Kotturuh watching her from the shadows of the deck below. It was resting on tentacles like giant maggots beneath the skirts of crimson velvet. Estinee froze, filled with the same fear she’d known on Destran the night her parents left her.

‘Can’t be here,’ she whispered, closing her eyes. Can’t be.

When she opened them again, the Kotturuh was right in front of her.

Diamond eyes glittered behind the dark spider-web veil. ‘Our Design cannot be broken,’ the Kotturuh announced in its unearthly tones. ‘And all within it have their part to play.’

Shivering, shaky-breathed, Estinee kept her eyes shut for what felt like ages.

When she opened them again, the Kotturuh had gone.

Stunned, numb, she sat very still.

That couldn’t have been real, she told herself, feeling stupid. If the Kotturuh knew where we were, they’d strike us dead right now. You’re losing your mind.

Only … What if you’re not …?

Estinee ran back the way she’d come, to tell Fallomax, and the Doctor.

Fallomax was rattled by Estinee’s story – as much by the Kotturuh’s eerie appearance as by what they knew now about Chalskal.

She told Estinee to stay in her cabin in her Lifeshroud. The teleport was fully charged and programmed to jump her to the main lab if she saw Kotturuh again, or anything else.

After ten-bells, the Doctor walked in with Brian, and Fallomax explained what had happened.

‘Do you believe her story?’ Brian asked.

‘I believe she believes it. Could be hallucination, repressed memories …’ She poked Brian with her look. ‘Synapses misfiring as they heal from her last near-death experience.’

‘Mr Ball suspects you will have had ample opportunity to observe similar misfires on the many occasions you demonstrated the child’s abilities …’

‘We don’t have time for this,’ the Doctor said heavily. ‘I’ll run some tests on Estinee tomorrow. But why would the Kotturuh only come to her?’

‘They have incredible powers of mental projection,’ said Fallomax. ‘Estinee’s spent a long time in Mordeela. They could be using her as a conduit to spy on us?’

‘If everything happens according to your Design, you don’t need to spy,’ said the Doctor. ‘Anyway, if they are using Estinee, why advertise the fact?’

‘Maybe because … they know we can’t stop them, whatever we do.’ Fallomax felt suddenly tired. She imagined Kotturuh gathering in space, all around them. ‘Why do they have to exist?’ she hissed. ‘They’re so obsessed with the idea we should all be born with a death sentence hanging over us.’

The Doctor nodded to Brian. ‘By our time it’s entirely normalised. Death grows ingrained into the fabric of creation. All things end – except for the Kotturuh. Witnesses to life, arbiters of death, they’re the ones that get to go on, out there in the dark. Relentless. Immortal.’

‘To taunt a child for no reason would seem beneath such beings,’ said Brian.

‘Or maybe it just shows them for what they are – cruel, bullying cowards.’ The Doctor had grown suddenly fierce. ‘They’ve come for Estinee because she’s defied the Kotturuh’s Judgement – proving that they’re fallible. They don’t want word of that getting about, so they try to keep her down.’

Fallomax nodded slowly, fumbling for the crumbs of comfort he seemed to offer. ‘But how can they ever be beaten?’

‘Maybe … we need to play by the same rules as they do.’

Brian stared at the Doctor, eyes aglow. ‘What are you saying?’

‘That we do to them just exactly what they do to everyone else.’ The Doctor’s voice had hardened. ‘Turn their own power back on them. Limit their lifetimes. Choose how long they live – and finish their threat for ever.’

Chapter Twelve

‘What are you saying?’ Fallomax wondered at him. ‘It’s tricky enough just to shield someone from the Kotturuh genetic wave – now you think you can actually turn their gift against them?’

‘Don’t call it a gift like it’s something supernatural,’ the Doctor insisted. ‘Call it what it is: a thought-propelled retrovirus weaponised with some very nasty enzymes.’

‘A gift is easier to say,’ Brian noted.

‘How can you ever fight back against the Kotturuh?’ said Fallomax. ‘We’re talking about creatures who can twist life into death as easily as Chalskal takes a bow.’

‘Estinee’s genes have twisted Kotturuh death back into life,’ the Doctor countered. ‘If we could combine that effect with the Lifeshroud’s ability to deflect the Kotturuh Wave …’

‘For that you would need to study the Wave in action,’ Brian pointed out. ‘Perhaps when Skalithai falls …?’

‘It won’t fall,’ the Doctor said. ‘I will stop it happening.’

Brian nodded a fraction. ‘Whatever it takes?’

‘Whatever it takes.’

‘Wait.’ Fallomax jumped up. ‘If we can’t study the Wave in action, perhaps we can study it historically? Analyse its effect on a species’ DNA, with samples taken before, during and after.’

Brian tilted his head to one side. ‘Samples from where?’

Fallomax shrugged. ‘Back to Andalia!’

Betel four-seron-four kaffa, four-four-sky betel.

‘It’s perfect,’ said the Doctor quietly. ‘The new Andalian DNA shows us “after”, the just-killed can show us the during … and, thanks to the bodies in the Tombs of the Ended, we have the original, stable genetic information from centuries ago.’

‘Right,’ said Fallomax. ‘We can see what’s happened biologically to change them and reverse-engineer the metamorphosis. Although how we’d then use it against the Kotturuh I’ve no idea. And, anyway, I can’t see Chalskal just letting us zip off to Andalia before he’s got his Lifeshroud …’

‘Then we’d better give it to him,’ said the Doctor. ‘Hadn’t we?’

The next day, as the flagship chimes sounded evening six-bells, Estinee sat in her room with the lights off, feeling anxious. Since telling Fallomax what had happened, the only times she’d seen either her or the Doctor were when they’d run tests on her, taken blood or shone weird gadgets around her head. What it was all for, they wouldn’t exactly say. She’d told them she hadn’t seen the Kotturuh again, that it had felt more and more like a dream.

The Doctor had hugged her and told her she’d have better dreams soon. But then he’d gone off to work with Fallomax on some new thing with the crystals, while Brian manufactured new testing equipment. And her? She’d been told to rest. Alone, bored, nothing to—

‘Don’t just sit there!’ Fallomax burst in without knocking and the lights rose automatically. ‘We’re showing Chalskal the new Lifeshroud prototype. Come on!’

Estinee hugged herself. ‘I don’t have to wear it?’

‘Not this time.’ Fallomax nodded to the door with her head. ‘Come on. I promise, watching it work will make you feel better.’

So Estinee went with her to the main lab.

Chalskal stood at one end on his three big tails, looking impressively officious in a red poncho with golden braid and a small tricorn hat. Four armed guards stood in attendance. Brian was delving through a bronze toolbox on a float-table, helping the Doctor work on what had to be the new Lifeshroud. It had several ungainly attachments – strange, crystalline circuits and extra cables were plugged into the chainmail. The checks apparently complete, Brian stepped discreetly away.

‘Doctor,’ said Chalskal, pushing himself up to a more regal height. ‘I have indulged you with equipment, materials and time. I trust the presentation is ready to begin – and that I won’t be disappointed?’

‘Here it is.’ The Doctor reached under the Lifeshroud and pulled out a short, tubular object – the tool that Brian had been making all day in the workshop. ‘It’s a brand new prototype.’

‘A prototype for what?’ Chalskal demanded.

‘Not just “what”.’ The Doctor gave a cheery smile. ‘Watch!’

Estinee could’ve sworn time slowed down as things happened in a chain reaction. The Doctor tossed the tube to Brian, who aimed it at the nearest guard. Blasts of light spat into its torso, knocking it down. As the other guards drew their guns, the Doctor pulled out his sonic screwdriver and twisted hard. The weapons shot sparks and jumped from the guards’ hands – one recoiled and crashed into Chalskal, who went down with a squeak. Calm in the chaos, Brian took down two more of the guards while the Doctor shoved the float-table into the fourth. As the guard doubled over, Fallomax hefted the toolcase and brought it down on the back of his neck. He collapsed and there was suddenly stillness and silence.

Fallomax’s violet skin was flushed almost purple. ‘We did it!’ she bellowed.

Estinee stared, incredulous. ‘You haven’t killed them?’

‘Stunned,’ said the Doctor.

‘Well, it is only a prototype.’ Brian held the metal tube to Chalskal’s hairy wart of a head. ‘Thank you for supplying the materials needed, Ambassador. Is a further demonstration necessary?’

‘NO!’ wailed Chalskal. ‘I protest formally! And informally! You can’t do this to me … The Lifeshroud is needed.’

‘By your mercenary army so they can kill without comeback, we know,’ the Doctor agreed. ‘And they’re going to get them too. We weren’t kidding about the Lifeshroud two-point-zero demo. There’s just one feature we’ve literally not had time to test. Professor, put the Ambassador in the new Lifeshroud, could you?’

Fallomax approached the sweating Chalskal – who was holding very, very still at gunpoint – and dressed him in it as best she could. Once she’d made connections to two of his’s tripod tails, she retreated to stand beside Estinee, leaving the Ambassador looking like a dressed-up child.

‘Lovely!’ The Doctor flicked a switch on the crystalline circuit, and Chalskal’s chainmail glowed soft gold. ‘Now, Ambassador. We’ve made improvements to the power efficiency in the crystals powering the ’Shroud. Whoever wears it, their DNA signature is shielded from the Kotturuh’s genetic wave. But if we boost the power far enough, we think we can reverse that Wave and bounce it back at the Kotturuh …’

‘What use is that?’ Chalskal cried, crossly. ‘The Kotturuh can’t be affected by their own spells, can they?’

‘Not without a little adaptation,’ the Doctor agreed. ‘That’s the next stage. Sorry to love you and leave you, but hey, don’t worry. You can help Brian finish the demonstration.’

‘We need to know how long the crystals will hold double-charge before they either melt or explode,’ Fallomax informed him. ‘Might be hours. Might be days! Might be just minutes …’

‘You dare to make High Ambassador Chalskal your test subject?’ he raged, tails thumping the floor.

‘I would hold very still, Ambassador,’ Brian advised, stepping back. ‘With the extra charge running through them, the crystals become highly volatile …’

‘Release me!’

‘Perhaps I shall. Once you release control of your mercenary fleet to the Doctor.’

‘What?’ the Doctor and Chalskal chorused. The Ambassador was so shocked he actually fainted; the Doctor only looked like he wanted to.

‘Don’t be ridiculous,’ said the Doctor. ‘What do I need with a fleet?’

Brian crossed to him. ‘What you are planning is tantamount to declaring war on the Kotturuh. There may be … consequences.’

‘And billions of lives at stake,’ said Fallomax.

‘You said you would do whatever it takes,’ Brian said. ‘Remember? Crewed by mercenaries in Lifeshrouds, a conventional fleet will stand a better chance against the Kotturuh than anything else. I fear Mr Ball is too hot-headed for an admiral’s commission in peacetime, but I will act as your commander and brief the mercenaries—’

The Doctor shot him a look. ‘Why are you so willing to help me?’

‘Because I know that you would never just abandon this time and place. And so I prefer to live.’ Brian smiled. ‘I think you underestimate your grasp of strategy and fitness for command.’

‘Or prefer to,’ Fallomax muttered.

The Doctor looked troubled. ‘All right, we’ll argue about it later. Look after Chalskal and get things ready for action here. Professor, Estinee – we need to get to Andalia and get what we need to generate the reverse wave.’

Fallomax raised her eyebrows. ‘In your ship? How long will that take?’

‘We’ll be there before you know it,’ the Doctor told her.

‘Make sure you are away before the date given to you by the Kotturuh,’ said Brian, ‘just in case … Admiral?’

‘Admiral! No, thanks. Ship’s Doctor will do.’ The Doctor took a deep breath, summoning energy or will. Then he led Fallomax and Estinee over to his blue box in the corner of the lab. ‘Whatever the rank, I declare this fleet to have a new flagship! HMS TARDIS, ready for boarding …’

Estinee followed him in, and swapped boggling looks with Fallomax. The tiny box was wide as a field inside and glowing like a summer sunset.

The doors slammed shut behind them.

Chapter Thirteen

Estinee stood with the Doctor and Fallomax outside the Tombs of the Ended on Andalia. The plaza was littered with fallen flies, dust and corpses. Dead moss lay like ash. A few uncertain insects flicked tentative wings.

Together they watched a young Andalian creature scurry about. Tiny tusks squinted from the ridged forehead. It turned over bones and remains, absorbed and silent. Then, with no further thought, it took off gracefully into the sky and left them behind.

‘He doesn’t know what he’s lost,’ said the Doctor. ‘That’s the burden of those left behind.’

‘Right,’ said Fallomax, sweating in her Lifeshroud. ‘We’re the ones really suffering.’

It would take time, Estinee supposed, for new life to get a proper foothold here. ‘I was always sad when the harvest was gathered back home. Only the short stalks left behind, even though I knew they would grow and rise again.’ Estinee gazed around her. ‘It feels the same here.’

‘“All flesh is as grass, and all the glory of man as the flower of grass,”’ the Doctor said quietly. ‘But this harvest didn’t have to happen.’

‘It always happens,’ said Estinee. ‘That’s what my mother told me. Harvests have to happen just as children have to grow. Seasons and children are the only things that change …’

‘Famous last words, Mum,’ Fallomax muttered.

The Doctor stared up at the silent tombs. ‘You two can wait in the TARDIS if you want. I’ve got to take samples from the dead in here.’

‘I’ll help,’ said Estinee.

‘I’ll set up inside,’ Fallomax said.

Estinee did what she could as the suns tracked through the clear sky, but it wasn’t much. She hunted for living moss; the Doctor said he needed it for comparison, but she couldn’t find any. The Doctor told her to keep searching while he did the work of ten people at once in the TARDIS: gathering the rest of his samples, analysing them, dazzling Fallomax with new ways of doing things, using technology she could barely comprehend. And if the Professor couldn’t grasp them, Estinee decided it was wiser not to even try.

The way she saw it, the Kotturuh put limits on life with their magic spells. The Doctor was searching for the words of the spells in the Andalian DNA, and, once he had them, he would make a spell of his own to stop the Kotturuh for good.

But it was taking time that they didn’t have. The hours were counting down, not just to the End of Days on Skalithai but to something a lot more personal.

‘The Kotturuh wanted me to know a time and a place.’ The Doctor had said it so casually, just an hour ago, as he’d added something to a phial of fluid in the TARDIS lab. ‘They came to me before I could leave Mordeela and they left me babbling a date – five days from now, here on Andalia.’

‘That’s what I heard you muttering on the flagship?’ Estinee realised.

‘Their way of gloating. Warning me that I’m going to know death.’ The silence was heavy, and the Doctor waved it away. ‘Don’t worry, it’s all right. The Kotturuh think they see the future, but I’m a Time Lord – I’m from the future. And I know the future’s not written. Here and now … I can do anything.’

‘Well, that is kind of the basis for this whole plan,’ said Fallomax. ‘But don’t you think we should get back to Brian on the flagship and work there?’

‘Don’t worry, we’ll be long gone before five days are up.’

‘That’s almost when Skalithai is due to fall.’ Estinee lowered her voice. ‘Do you think the Kotturuh know our plans?’

‘If they do, and they’re bothered, that’s a good sign.’ The Doctor gave her a rare grin that felt like a gift. ‘It means we’re going to win.’

And just half an hour later, he whooped as if he really had. His phial of crystals was bubbling with black filings.

‘What?’ Fallomax stared at him. ‘What have you done?’

‘Not sure.’ He peered at the phial warily. ‘Got to double-check. Run it through the sequence accelerator.’

So saying, he sprinted from the lab. Estinee and Fallomax swapped a look and followed him back to the control room.

‘We’ll soon know if we’ve done it.’ He had already lashed up some bulky equipment on the console, and now poured the contents of the phial through a funnel he’d jammed into one end. ‘If we channel a little temporal energy through the solution we can achieve months of incubation in seconds …’

There was a loud, brassy ping and, with a mechanical chatter, strips of printed paper curled out from a slot. The Doctor pushed his glasses into place, snatched up the paper and scanned the results.

‘Well, well,’ he said. ‘Well, well, well, well, well.’

‘What?’ Fallomax’s cheeks had paled to pink. ‘You did it? No. You didn’t. Did you?’

‘It works. The reverse wave works!’ The Doctor threw his glasses into the air, grabbed her and kissed her head. ‘Look, Estinee! The Kotturuh cells have decayed, unravelled. Died off!’

‘We can fight back?’ Estinee stared, mouth open, feeling sick and excited. ‘How did you ever get Kotturuh cells?’

‘One of them grabbed me by the throat. Barest trace of Kotturuh DNA left behind, but enough to work with.’ The Doctor beamed. ‘I made a culture in the lab.’

‘That’s what you were doing? Why didn’t you tell us?’ Fallomax demanded. ‘I thought we’d never get anywhere without their DNA …’

‘Had to be a secret.’ He looked at Estinee. ‘The Kotturuh might’ve been listening in. Now it’s too late for them to stop us – cos we can stop them. I’ve simulated them firing their Genetic Wave at a Lifeshroud and bounced back our remixed, reflected version …’

Fallomax cupped her hands over her mouth. ‘You’ve built a weapon?’

‘More of a mirror,’ the Doctor conceded.

‘What will it do to them?’

‘Estinee’s “will to life” doesn’t sit well with the Kotturuh’s will to death. Depends on the intensity of what it’s reflecting, but …’

‘It could kill them?’

‘Maybe.’ The Doctor met her gaze. ‘I’m hoping to drive them back. Perhaps a bit more.’

‘You’re using me to do this?’ Estinee felt cold. ‘I thought you were just going to give them a lifespan, so they don’t live for ever any more.’

‘It’ll only affect them if they attack,’ said Fallomax. ‘This could be a way to curb their aggression, contain them—’

‘Or we could do it,’ the Doctor said quietly. ‘We could end the Kotturuh.’

Estinee looked at him. ‘I hate the Kotturuh for all they’ve done. But to kill them all …?’

‘If I don’t, it won’t stop!’ The Doctor looked suddenly agonised; she was reminded you didn’t always have to scratch deep to draw blood. ‘I know what happens, I’ve seen it. Left unchecked, the Kotturuh sweep across the entire universe, crushing life, bringing death, tearing apart civilisations that might’ve stood for eternity …’

‘A doctor’s meant to bring life, not death,’ said Estinee. ‘You’re a doctor!’

‘Or am I an admiral? Or a knight, or a fool? Does it matter what I am?’ He reeled away from the console, paced about. ‘I’d be saving so many lives. Lives that will go on and on. See, in my time, death is a constant, everywhere you go. The price we pay for progress. The pain we pay for love. The way to win a war.’ He turned to look at her and Fallomax. ‘But it doesn’t have to be. I can stop the Kotturuh here and now and change everything. Reinvent the future.’

Fallomax looked uneasy. ‘You’d really mess with the way things are meant to be?’

‘Who gets to choose what’s meant to be?’ The Doctor didn’t wait for an answer. ‘The Time Lords, that’s who. My people. They came up with the Laws of Time and tried to enforce them but, in the end, death came for them too. They all burned – last act of a Time War that left the universe hollowed out and a billion galaxies in bits. Death gone mad! That’s what creation has to look forward to. But if I crush the Kotturuh, sweep away their Design, think of the suffering that could be stopped. The worlds that could be saved! Ascinta, Perganon, Gallifrey – worlds you’ve never dreamed of! Think of it – the Time Lords may never fall, the Daleks may never evolve, the people of Mondas never wear out so they never become Cybermen …’

Estinee swapped a blank look with Fallomax. ‘We don’t know what these things are.’

‘You won’t need to know. It’s perfect!’

‘But all the people you’ve known—’

‘The people I’ve lost,’ the Doctor snapped. ‘They’ll always have lived, I’ll still have known them. I’ll remember and honour their lives. But this way, who knows, maybe I’ll meet them again – and they can stay with me for ever! With lives no longer defined by endings … with a continuity to the ages … think what so many worlds could go on to achieve!’

‘Sounds kind of like you’re trying to convince yourself,’ said Fallomax. ‘Not us.’

‘I don’t have to convince you. It’s not your call.’ The Doctor stared down at the equipment on his lab bench. ‘There’s this story about a man who cheats Death … a story I’ve known well, for a very long time. Sometimes it felt like my story. The choices I’ve tried to make. The parts I’ve had to play. But in the end, you have to stop playing.’ He spoke distantly, as if remembering across the years. ‘There were times when I couldn’t be the Doctor. When I had to become something else … to do what I didn’t want to do. But this – oh, I want this! Death, decay, limits – they can all come to an end, and I’m calling it.’ He shouted to the vaulted ceiling, or perhaps to the stars beyond it: ‘If I’m the last Time Lord standing, I’m staying that way, whatever it takes – victorious!’

Snatching up the phials he strode away, out of the control room.

‘He’ll be taking those to the lab for tests and fine tuning,’ said Fallomax quietly. ‘The most incredible ideas come out of his head, but the rest of him? It’s all but empty.’

Nothing left to lose, thought Estinee. She looked at Fallomax. ‘Do you want to kill the Kotturuh?’

‘I … just want all this to stop.’ Fallomax turned from her and crossed the control room. ‘I’d better go and help him with those tests. Find out what he thinks we should do next. If I can remember the way …’

Estinee watched her go. She was alone in the control room. I don’t want to kill anyone, she thought miserably. Not even Kotturuh. She lay on the floor and closed her eyes. Curled up on her side, lonely in the blue firelight of the control room.

A Kotturuh drifted from the coral shadows behind her like a ghost. It hovered over the console and its glittering claws flicked over the controls.

Chapter Fourteen

Fallomax could hear the Doctor’s voice from the TARDIS laboratory all the way down the corridor, spilling over static. She had no idea how the ship could be so big inside something so little, but it felt like she hadn’t walked so far in her Lifeshroud in years. The damn thing chafed and weighed you down. The thought that she might finally take it off and still feel safe …

With a pang of guilt, she thought of wide-eyed Estinee, so shocked at the idea of killing.

‘Whatever it takes, sweetheart,’ she muttered.

‘Brian, this is the Doctor …’ He was still calling in the laboratory. ‘Interference from somewhere … Brian? Are you receiving me?’

She hesitated outside, eavesdropping.

‘Brian, it’s the Doctor! Are you …?’

‘Commander Brian, receiving you, Admiral,’ came the calm response at last. ‘How is your great endeavour—’

‘I want you to take Chalskal’s fleet and attack Mordeela.’

A pause. ‘Please repeat your instructions, Admiral.’

‘I’m not an Admiral!’

‘For appearances,’ Brian said more quietly.

‘All right. All right, Commander. This is Admiral-the-Ship’s-Doctor ordering you to move out of Skalithai space. Get into a holding orbit around the Mordeela exclusion zone.’

As he talked on, Fallomax waited in the doorway to the laboratory. While the phial was irradiated in a machine filled with Kotturuh crystals, the Doctor was talking to Brian over a monitor screen. The Ood was still wearing his black suit, but with a red sash worn diagonally which looked suspiciously like it had once been part of Chalskal’s poncho.

‘Admiral, are your orders that we take the fight to the Kotturuh?’

‘We take a leaf from their book,’ said the Doctor, ‘threatening what they love and value most. Maybe they’ll call off their attack on Skalithai to defend their gateway.’

‘Go against their own Design? That seems unlikely.’

‘Agreed,’ said Fallomax, with a mock salute to Brian. ‘They have an unbreakable shield to defend their gateway.’

‘Oh, I think I have an idea of how to get past it,’ said the Doctor. ‘If the Kotturuh agree to be contained – agree to leave the universe alone – then we’ve won.’

‘They will never agree to that,’ said Brian. ‘The Design is their only cause and religion. You know that.’

‘If that’s how it is,’ said the Doctor, ‘then what happens next is on them.’

‘On that subject, Brian,’ said Fallomax, ‘how long did the crystals hold the charge on Chalskal’s Lifeshroud before they ran down?’

‘For just over six hours,’ Brian reported, ‘then they exploded. Mr Ball found the detonation to be unexpectedly violent. He was relieved that something soft got in the way.’

The Doctor frowned. ‘Chalskal?’

‘The Ambassador should be able to bow again within a month or so. He is receiving excellent treatment on Skalithai.’ Brian gave a discreet blink. ‘The authorities assure me he will soon be well enough to stand trial.’

‘Oh.’ The Doctor experienced a momentary worry at Brian’s smoothness. ‘Don’t they want to confiscate his fleet or something?’

‘Why no,’ the Ood chided him. ‘Once I explained the mercenary nature of this organisation, they were horrified at the thought they might be liable for the bill. I assured Skalithai that you would be only too happy to pay for them.’

‘I would?’

‘You would. You may even have offered the troops a bonus to reassure them that they would not be abandoned by the new management. It was very kind of you.’

‘It was.’ The Doctor felt that tilting worry of control edging away from him. ‘Brian?’

‘Yes?’

‘Do I really need an army?’

The Ood stared in some consternation at his translator sphere and shook it slightly. Then he looked back at the Doctor, patiently, pityingly. ‘You are facing off against Death. You cannot propose doing that just by yourself.’

‘I normally manage it just with my friends,’ the Doctor said.

‘But Admiral,’ said Brian, ‘we are your friends. Now, when should we expect you back on board?’

‘Soon, Commander,’ sighed the Doctor. ‘I need to finish working on something first. Out.’

Brian’s face faded from the screen.

Fallomax looked at the Doctor. ‘You know, Doctor suits you a whole lot better than Admiral.’

‘It does,’ the Doctor agreed as his machine bleeped. He pulled out a phial of crystals, which glowed dangerously as they caught the light. He considered it a moment, then reset the machine.

‘What are you doing?’

‘Second thoughts,’ the Doctor muttered, not looking Fallomax in the eye. ‘Listening to my friends, maybe.’

The machine beeped again, and the Doctor removed another phial of crystals from it. These reflected the light more dimly. ‘A taste of their own medicine but watered down. Maybe even with a spoonful of sugar.’

‘You’re showing mercy to the Kotturuh?’

‘Depends on what they fling at us,’ the Doctor said. ‘But I’m giving them more than they give anyone else – a choice.’ He held the two phials up to the light. ‘One’s a sentence of death.’ He tucked the first phial away inside his jacket. ‘This one’s a sentence of life.’ He put the second phial in his top pocket.

‘But what about your fleet?’ Fallomax said. ‘You’ve just sent them all to Mordeela. When the Kotturuh sense that Mordeela’s under threat, their ships will converge and they’ll attack.’

‘Exactly,’ the Doctor agreed. ‘And that may be to our advantage. When they converge, they’ll be close enough for our counter-wave to hit them.’

‘In the meantime,’ said Fallomax, helping herself to some crystals scattered beside the machine, ‘people will die.’

The Doctor shook his head. ‘They’ll be protected by Lifeshrouds.’

‘For six hours.’ She replenished her own ’Shroud’s crystal supply; another two days’ protection from Kotturuh attack. ‘Think that’s long enough?’

‘It’ll have to be.’

‘You’re happy to sacrifice your mercenaries?’

‘Not mine. I didn’t hire them. Presumably they signed up because they’re ready to fight …’

‘They’re not yours, but you’ll use them. Just as I used Estinee. For all your furrowed brow and kind words, you’re really no better than me, are you?’ Fallomax looked down at the comforting pulse of her ’Shroud’s crystal circuit, and sighed. ‘Pity. For a time there I actually thought you were diff—’

She broke off as the floor bucked under her feet, and a great grind of engines crunched at the air. ‘What the—?’

‘Dematerialisation!’ The Doctor pushed past her and ran off down the corridor. ‘Someone’s trying to work the TARDIS. Come on!’

‘Estinee …?’ Fallomax was soon puffing as she ran after the Doctor. So many years locked up on board the Polythrope, padding round the corridors twice a day, could never have prepared her for keeping up with someone like the Doctor, who charged at open space like a toddler off the reins.

When she reached the control room, he was scanning the screens on the central console. ‘We’ve shifted forward!’

‘On the plaza?’ Fallomax panted.

‘Forward in time.’ He looked up at her, eyes wide and dark and urgent. ‘Five days.’

‘To when the Kotts said you’d come?’ A chill traced the length of her backbone. ‘Where is Estinee?’

‘Estinee.’ He stared around, like a beast scenting danger. ‘The Kotturuh must have come to her again. They’ve done this.’ He raised his voice. ‘Estinee!’

‘Doctor …’ Fallomax pointed. The police box doors were open. ‘Doctor, come on. This is their trap. You’ve got to get away from here.’

‘We can’t leave Estinee,’ the Doctor said.

‘We can come back for her. A different day. I mean, come on, they want you to do this!’

But the Doctor was already walking to the doors. Fallomax wanted to follow him out. To save Estinee. To be that brave. But her legs wouldn’t move. Come on, your Lifeshroud’s fully charged, she told herself, the Kotturuh Judgement can’t catch up with you.

‘Fallomax?’

She turned at the sound of Estinee’s voice, incredulous, delighted.

Estinee’s owl-like eyes were dark and glittered like diamonds. In her hands she held a stubby tool with a square nozzle: an energy probe, like the one that had burned the flesh from her bones at every demonstration of the Lifeshroud.

‘There are so many other ways to die, Professor,’ said Estinee.

Though she was still panting, Fallomax turned and ran, faster and harder than she ever had in her life. She reached the TARDIS doors just as Estinee switched on the probe.

As the light engulfed her, Fallomax screamed. The tears in her eyes boiled away so quickly, and her last thought was of the shame she felt that she had only ever cried for herself.

The Doctor was hunting for Estinee in the grounds of the Tombs. He watched as two Andalians circled high overhead like bloated buzzards. Then they flew away, as a strange, unearthly wind began to build across the plaza.

The Doctor heard the scream from inside the TARDIS. ‘Fallomax!’ he shouted, picking a desperate path across the plaza, jumping over bones and bodies.

Estinee stood in the TARDIS doorway. In front of her was a heap of steaming remains. It was only by the golden mail and cables over the charred jumpsuit that the Doctor knew they had been Fallomax.

‘What did you do?’ he whispered.

‘I hated her for what she did to me.’ Estinee’s dark eyes glittered. ‘The Kotturuh knew that. They used that hate to make me kill her for them.’ A single bloody tear tore its way from the blackness in her eyes. ‘I don’t want to kill anyone. But you do. They know what you are. That’s why they’re doing this.’

‘This isn’t you,’ the Doctor told her urgently. ‘It’s the Kotturuh. You were on Mordeela for so long, they owned a part of you and they’re using it—’

‘I don’t want to kill anyone.’ Estinee took a jerking step towards the Doctor. ‘You want to use me to kill …’

‘No! That’s what the Kotturuh want. They couldn’t get to Fallomax so they used you to do it. And I’m not a part of their Design – they have no right to touch me so they’re getting to me through you. They’re using your fear, your anger, your helplessness …’

‘What else drives you, little one …?’

The Kotturuh were coming as the skies darkened. Shadows and scratchings swept across the inky indigo, as thick night settled over the corpse-littered plaza. The wind grew hotter; the Doctor felt as though a furnace door had been flung open and the heat was being bellowed into his face.

Estinee took another step towards him, the energy probe clutched tight in her hands.

‘You would destroy us for a fool’s fantasy …’

‘Life doesn’t deserve the Kotturuh!’ the Doctor howled into the storm. ‘Estinee, you have to fight this. The Kotturuh are coming for you. Once you’ve killed me they’ll take you back to Mordeela, keep you there for good …’

‘No,’ Estinee whispered, as eight Kotturuh ghosted into reality, standing in a circle about the TARDIS, perhaps 50 metres wide. A faint mist seemed to blow in with them, coiling around their oily tentacles.

‘Your interference in the Design is not tolerated, little one.’ One of the Kotturuh, smaller than the others, came closer, through the mist. ‘End him, child of Destran.’

‘Estinee, don’t—!’

‘End him.’

Chapter Fifteen

Estinee felt the darkness prickling her eyes, felt the cold dank tunnels of Mordeela running through her body. Dimly, through a haze of blood and shadow, she could see the Doctor’s face.

Here she stood, ready to kill him. And even now, there was only concern and compassion in his frantic eyes. For her.

The energy probe felt so heavy in her outstretched hands. She wanted to drop it, but she couldn’t. The Kotturuh had placed it in her hands, like they placed words in the minds of the revenants, using her like they used all life to bring more death. And death could bring her no end so she knew she would be kept in the cold and the dark for ever. Owned and alone for ever.

Estinee could feel the Kotturuh willing her to kill him. Why had she not killed him already?

‘Get into the TARDIS, Estinee!’ The Doctor tried to knock the probe from her hands. But a Kotturuh swept in front of him, a dark blur on reality. He recoiled, fell to the ground.

‘Death must be brought, little one,’ it hissed, ‘and Death must be taken.’

Estinee stared at the energy probe. It made her afraid. She remembered hiding in her room the night the Kotturuh came. Her mother turning to bones. Her father sprawling on the ground.

Like the Doctor, now, helpless on his knees, staring into the nozzle of the energy probe. ‘Let go of her mind!’ he shouted.

You’ve made me angry, she thought. You’ve made me afraid.

‘All life is ours to twist to our design,’ said the Kotturuh.

You’ve made me hope.

‘Estinee, please—’

You’ve made me run.

‘You and the child are the last of your kind. You have flown so far. But your flight has ended, now.’

You’ve made me feel.

She closed her eyes. Angry and in control.

Estinee pushed the energy probe against the crystals in her Lifeshroud, and fired.

‘No!’ The Doctor saw what Estinee was doing a fraction before the blast. It sent him flying backwards, rolling and tumbling over Andalian bodies. The Kotturuh reeled back too in confusion. One of the creatures fell against him, cold, squat and heavy, and for a split second he saw under her veil.

He saw her face.

The Doctor glimpsed graveyard eyes oozing rot. A black grimace framing teeth like broken bones. Deep-etched symbols bleeding and stinking across the skin. A primal horror filled the Doctor’s mind, and he covered his face, crawling blindly on hands and knees to get away. Over the blood-rush in his ears he heard a crackle of power and stared, panting for breath.

Estinee was gone. Vaporised in the blast. But the Lifeshroud that held the last of Fallomax together was glowing now. The fresh crystals had absorbed the blast and were radiating energy.

The Doctor got painfully to his feet. His suit was in tatters, his shirt stained with blood and dirt. Numbly, he felt in his top pocket for the phial he’d prepared.

It had fallen out. He’d lost it.

The Kotturuh were rising from the ground like vampires climbing from their graves.

‘Two more people dead,’ said the Doctor, coldly furious. ‘Dead because you scribbled dates and diagrams on a wall and you think they give you the right to do anything.’

The largest Kotturuh pushed forward. ‘Betel four-seron-four kaffa—’

‘Yeah, yeah, four-four-sky betel, I know what time it is. You told me I would know death.’ The Doctor shook his head. ‘But not mine. Not just Fallomax and Estinee. Yours.’

He reached inside his jacket. Found the other phial. Pulled it out.

The Sentence of Death.

For a second he hesitated. Then he tossed it to the ground beside Fallomax’s body, and it cracked open.

‘You don’t get to decide who dies any more,’ the Doctor said.

The Kotturuh barely even noticed it. What was a small glass phial when they had shaped the future of eternity?

‘You will not interfere with our Design.’

‘Think you can stop me?’

‘Why should we stop you –’ the Kotturuh leaned in, veil shifting in the breeze – ‘when we can simply stop your entire species?’

You could not see them smile, you could never see a Kotturuh smile, but the Doctor knew she was smiling now.

‘A small planet, not very far away. A race that will one day become Time Lords. We had always considered they had much to offer the universe. But I think, once we are finished here, we shall revisit that opinion.’

The Kotturuh turned to each other, clearly approving of the gesture. Only they could find humour in the dooming of a whole species. And yet …

The Doctor smiled too. You could always see when the Doctor smiled. But you never quite knew what he was laughing at.

‘You know, it’s interesting,’ he said, as ebony flakes began to drift from beneath the Kotturuh veils and their hides grew waxy. ‘Someone once told me that if I could decide who lives and who dies, that would make me a monster. But there are worse monsters than me in this universe.’

The Kotturuh sank down as if bowing. ‘What … is happening?’

‘There’s a chance, now, that from here on, everyone lives. And I’m not passing that up for your sakes.’

‘What have you done?’

‘Simulated your gift and flung it back in your faces.’

‘We are … infected?’

‘You’re changing.’ The Doctor held up a hand. ‘Wave goodbye to immortality, Kotturuh. Say hello to Fifteen Minutes of Fame!’

‘You … cannot interfere …’ The Kotturuh was sinking to its knees, rippling like laundry on a line. ‘This is … sacrilege …’

‘This is victory,’ said the Doctor. ‘How long have you got, Kotturuh? Can you work it out? Tell the others, tell the rest of your species to run. Because your death has been decided and it’s coming.’

The creatures were moaning, writhing now.

‘I warned you to stop. All you showed the universe was cruelty. But all flesh is grass, Kotturuh – even yours. The grass withers, but the word of the Time Lord Victorious? That endures for ever!’

And as the skies bled black overhead, and the Kotturuh howled, he stepped into the TARDIS and left.

Estinee watched the Doctor go from high up in the sky. She saw what was left of the Kotturuh rise into the air and fade like phantoms. She could see whatever she wanted now, because she was filling the sky, out of reach.

Set free from a body that had known so much pain, Estinee spun with the new-born Andalians in their mindless joy of flight. She thought of the Doctor one last time and wished him the luck and strength that he was bound to need. Then she let him go, and his anger and his sadness, and soared towards the suns before they set.

Chapter Sixteen

The Doctor was going back to Chalskal’s flagship and he had dressed for the occasion.

He wore his Time Lord robes, the scarlet and orange of his chapter folded like a sunrise around him. Well, wasn’t he ringing in the dawn of a new era?

Here he was, survivor of a universe in which Gallifrey fell, staking everything in these ancient times that he could show his world a better way, a way that would lead away from war.

They were in orbit around Mordeela. And he could finish what he’d started on Andalia.

The Doctor closed his eyes. ‘Do I have the right?’

You can’t doubt it, he told himself. The war of Life and Death: over in a single battle. And then …

Then, things will be different.

They have to be.

The Doctor straightened. It would be a clean start. No more abuses of power.

Not after today.

‘I approve of your uniform, Admiral,’ Brian said as the Doctor swept onto the Bridge.

‘In my time it was ceremonial,’ the Doctor said. ‘But it’s what we used when we went into battle, and that’s what we’re doing now.’

‘Of course,’ Brian accepted this with a sommelier’s approval of a delightful choice from the wine list. He issued a series of urgent gestures to the mercenaries scattered across the flight deck and the Doctor had the absurd feeling that Brian was running the ship like an expensive restaurant.

Beneath them was the planet Mordeela. Clustered under its shield were a dozen Kotturuh ships. Sheltering from the storm.

But, the Doctor knew, the die was cast. He still didn’t understand where their ancient science ended and magic began, and perhaps it was best that he didn’t. You could call it an enzymatic retrovirus, a genetic nanovore, or just an ancient curse. Names didn’t matter – sentence was passed and there was no stopping it. Like Fallomax, the Kotturuh would have to try and outrun it as best they could.

‘More Kotturuh ships are approaching,’ said Brian.

Tension spread across the bridge. The creatures’ name was still to be feared. Weapons were manned, and the ship bucked beneath him as the systems powered up. The Doctor gave himself just a moment to appreciate the outré and ornate nature of so much technology here in the Dark Times: if they could have carved a spaceship out of marble and run its engines on coal, then doubtless they would have.

‘Here they come,’ Brian said, as the screen began to fill with dark, glittering craft of flexible glass and metal, undulating like creatures dredged from deepest, darkest seas. More and more of the weird ships appeared, flexing and spreading, trailing eerie tendrils in an intimidating display.

‘I thought they’d open fire at once,’ Brian admitted.

‘They want us blocked in first,’ the Doctor said calmly. ‘No way for us to run.’

‘The entire fleet could be destroyed!’

‘No,’ the Doctor said. ‘I don’t think they care about the fleet. They just want to get past us and under the protective shield. Maybe it’ll save them.’

‘Will it?’

The Doctor crossed to a control panel, and inserted some of the crystals into a device. ‘Brian,’ he said, ‘I’m going to bore you about Mordeela.’

‘Please do.’

‘These crystals –’ he slotted a few more crystals inside the machine, with the intensity of a child at the penny arcade – ‘can reflect whatever energy the Kotturuh have channelled down on Mordeela back in on itself. The Kotturuh may be history’s problem now, but if all that weaponised energy they draw upon still exists …’ Three more crystals went inside. ‘I owe it to the future to seal off their power source so no other race with a death wish can pick up where they left off.’

‘We are dying.’

A Kotturuh filled the screen. It was speaking from inside the sepulchral interior of its craft. But something was wrong with the creature. Behind its veil, the flesh was running like an open wound.

‘Help us,’ it begged. ‘We cannot contain the infection.’

‘I told you I’d stop you,’ the Doctor said. ‘The death you’ve brought to so many others is coming back to bite you.’

‘This is not new life.’ The Kotturuh shook itself like a wet dog, black gore splashing through its veil. ‘This is not justice … This is … unravelling … nothing …’

The voice choked to whispers and the Kotturuh’s body followed it, fading to bleached, misshapen bones. As its bulk vanished, other Kotturuh on board could be seen, hovering at their black and spiny posts. They too were unravelling into dust.

‘Please, help … Doctor …’

The Kotturuh ship fell silent. Dust motes spun in the settling air.

‘Ashes to ashes,’ said the Doctor, and a chill spread across the bridge.

Mordeela had little atmosphere, but behind its shield the planet seemed swathed in blankets of unearthly light. More and more Kotturuh ships flitted under the shield. A glow spread between them. Were they working frantically to save themselves? Or were they getting ready to fight back?

Aware of the uncomfortable silence, the Doctor carefully closed the hatch on his device. ‘It’s ready, Brian.’

Brian regarded a control panel. ‘I can see it is online and ready to fire.’

‘No,’ the Doctor chided. ‘It’s not a weapon. Don’t say fire. Say go. All we’re doing is reflecting back the Kotturuh’s own energy signatures. Bricking up the well; sealing off Mordeela.’

‘Very well,’ the Ood tutted. An inferior Burgundy had clearly been ordered.

The Doctor stood there, on the bridge of his ship, the planet spinning below him. He was the Time Lord Victorious. He’d taken on Death, and he was winning and it felt so good. Payback, at last.

But … was this really the right thing to do? Was it?

‘Let’s get this over with,’ he said. He licked his lips, opened his mouth ready to give the order to ‘Go!’ only—

A spacecraft – shaped like a silver saucer – appeared to one side of the fleet.

A terrifyingly familiar saucer.

‘It can’t be …’ the Doctor said.

A face appeared on the screen. Both Brian and the Doctor reacted to it.

‘Hello, Doctor.’

‘No.’ It was another Doctor. Two Doctors ago, handsome, pale-eyed and looking rather cross.

‘I’ve come to stop you,’ said the Eighth Doctor. ‘And when I say I’ve come to stop you, I mean … that we have come to stop you.’

Number Eight stepped aside, so that everyone on the flagship’s flight deck could see behind him. But only the Doctor gasped and took a step back on instinct.

The saucer was full of Daleks. Daleks, glaring at him in silent hatred. His earlier self was surrounded by – working with – his deadliest enemies.

‘Is this a joke?’ the Doctor hissed.

The image on the screen split in two as another spaceship appeared beside the saucer. A forbidding craft, almost beautiful in its ugliness. Coffin Ship, he thought. No, it couldn’t be … could it? What was happening?

The image swam as another face appeared on the screen. Sad face. Cheery smile. Little wave. Grey, grim countenances gathered round behind him, staring out from the gloom.

‘We need to talk.’

It was the man he’d become at the end of the Time War. The Ninth Doctor. Standing on a ship of the undead.

‘What is this?’ the Doctor breathed.

‘We know you think you’re doing the right thing. But you’re not.’

The Eighth and the Ninth Doctors turned to each other as if they could see each other across space, and nodded.

‘You think you’ve saved the future,’ said Number Eight, ‘but you’re about to break it. Stop. You have to stop.’

The Doctor, resplendent in the ancient battledress of the Time Lords, regarded his two former selves and shook his head. ‘This is a trick. The last Kotturuh, putting images into my mind—’

‘No trick,’ said Nine.

‘No one tells me what to do,’ said the Doctor. ‘Not even me.’

‘Wrong. Don’t do it!’ Eight implored him.

‘Stop,’ Nine said. ‘Seriously, stop now.’

The Doctor looked at the screens. At the planet Mordeela shining below. At a pleading Doctor surrounded by Daleks. At an angry Doctor on a coffin full of vampires.

They were wrong. He was right. It was time to prove it.

Brian was staring at him intently. ‘You were about to say, “Go”?’

The Doctor adjusted his ceremonial attire, stood straighter and killed the images on the screen. ‘Mordeela’s going down with the Kotturuh. If myselves want to make this a battle, we’ll make it a battle.’ He took a deep, deep breath.

‘I’m saying, Fire!’

Find out what happens next in Doctor Who – Time Lord Victorious – All Flesh is Grass by Una McCormack, publishing in December 2020

THIS IS JUST

THE BEGINNING

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First published by BBC Books in 2020

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Cole Steve Doctor Who: The Knight, The Fool and The Dead