The Road to Shalka Part 1: Born Again

[Soldeed]

Well, it didn't take much encouragement. Thanks, Mare. One more time, this is my sequence of Scream of the Shalka prequels, because the REG Doctor isn't dead, only sleeping.

[Soldeed]

Through the gathering dusk a hunched, black coated figure shuffled its way along the clifftop path, steel-tipped cane clicking monotonously against the stony earth. What little was visible beneath the brim of his hat was almost impossibly ancient, the skin shrivelled and hanging loosely from the bone, with pale blue eyes so filmed and milky that they looked half blind. Yet as his breath laboured in and out and his face grew more drawn and exhausted at each step and his thin lips compressed with the effort, his gaze was fixed unwaveringly on the rambling mansion house at the top of the next rise.

“Doctor!”

The old man missed a step, fumbled and dropped his cane clattering to the ground as a white blur sprang out at him from behind a dry stone wall. A girl in her teens, all dark curls, wide eyes and dazzling smile, wrapped her arms like a vice about his waist.

“Doctor Smith, it’s so good to see you. We’ll have such fun!”

She released him only to take his hands and dance excitedly in a circle around him, moving adroitly despite the heavy, formal white dress which wrapped her in a cocoon of lace and ribbon. His face registered alarm as he barely avoided tripping over his own feet in keeping up with her, but a little of the weariness seemed to drain away and he managed a tired smile, his eyes softening with affection.

“Jasmine, one of these days you really are going to finish me off.”

He retrieved his hands and managed to keep his balance while Jasmine, overflowing with surplus energy as usual, squatted to pick up his cane and jumped up to press it into his hand and take his elbow, supporting the slight weight of his frail body.

“Oh, it’s been a terrible day,” she chattered as they resumed the journey. “Mr Heffer got back from London this morning and he says they all laughed at his new invention. He’s been in a foul mood ever since.”

“Ah. I’ll look forward to that, then.”

“Oh, it’ll be all right now you’re here. Just tell him you like the ridiculous thing and he’ll be happy as a King.”

The Doctor drew breath to reply, but his attention was distracted by a stone bench beside the path.

“Jasmine, perhaps I might rest here for a moment before I make my final assault on the peak.”

She glanced at the gentle slope which led up to the house but said nothing, and assisted him over to the bench, pulling his arm about her shoulders so that he might lower himself into a sitting position without placing too much pressure on his creaking, aching joints. He let out a long exhalation of relief and slumped forward, pulling his hat away to reveal a mottled scalp protected by just a few strands of flat and lifeless grey hair.

“Don’t look at me like that, Jasmine,” he said quietly, though from his hunched position he could not have seen her bite her lip worriedly at his weakness. “I plan on staying around for a while yet.”

“You’d better,” she returned immediately, making her voice bright and teasing. “Who would I have to talk to if you weren’t around?”

She fidgeted, up on her toes, and moved sideways with a succession of neat little dance steps before, with a visible effort, stilling herself and dropping to the bench beside him. He turned his head far enough to look at her thoughtfully from the corner of one eye.

“Are you unhappy? Your guardian does his very best for you.”

“Oh,” she rolled her head back and kicked her feet against each other. “I know he does. Everybody tells me so. But he was a friend of my parents and he just did the decent thing. He’d much rather I wasn’t around.”

Her profile, as she gazed out at the darkening waters of the Atlantic, was momentarily not that of an excitable young girl but of a grown woman. Her half-formed young features were developing a real beauty. The Doctor sighed.

“I’m so sorry they aren’t here to see you now.”

“Yes.” Jasmine spoke with little feeling. “Well, I suppose they’re up in Heaven looking down at me.”

“Heaven. Yes.” The old man glanced up to look at the stars, but it was a cloudy night. “That would be nice. To be done with life, and start fresh on something quite different. Now that would be something to look forward to.”

This engaged Jasmine’s interest.

“You sound as if you don’t think that’s what’s going to happen.”

“Well, what if when one life comes to an end you simply start all over again with a new one. A different face, a different personality, but still you.”

“Oh, I’ve heard of this. Reincarnation. But my tutor says only eastern barbarians believe in it.”

A faint smile.

“That’s a Latin word, you know. Barbarus. When they met foreigners who spoke a different language it sounded to the Romans as if they were talking nonsense. Barbarbarbarbar. And that’s what they called them. So you see, a barbarian is actually just someone you don’t understand.”

“Oh.” Jasmine hesitated, knowing a conversation would come to an end if he felt she was being dense. “Well, it’s only what my tutor called them...”

“What have I told you about your tutor?”

She straightened like a child in a schoolroom.

“Don’t believe anything he says until I’ve checked it with you first.”

“Exactly. Now tell me, if you had your choice, Heaven or reincarnation, which would it be?”

“Um...”

“Relax. It’s only hypothetical. You’re not really selecting a destiny for your immortal soul.”

“Well... The reincarnation sounds more interesting. It would be like living forever, only you’d keep on getting the chance to start again and do everything better than last time.”

“Hm.” The Doctor paused, the creases about his eyes deepening in thought. “You don’t think it would get monotonous after a while? You don’t feel that after a while you’d be ready to move on to whatever comes next? Find out what’s over the rainbow, as it were.”

Jasmine shrugged.

“Depends what comes next, I suppose.”

“Quite. But there’s something else. If in this new life I have not only a different body but a different mind and different thoughts, then how can we say it’s still me? Or is it someone else, who has stolen my place in the universe? And in that case, am I myself not truly dead?”

There was a silence, and the Doctor looked round to find Jasmine staring at him, wary and concerned. His crumpled old face moved in a reassuring smile.

“It’ll be dark soon, and your guardian will worry.”

She sprang up, and grasped his hands to pull him to his feet. With his arm resting on her shoulder, they resumed their journey towards the house silhouetted on the clifftop ahead.

[Soldeed]

In the smoky gaslight of Heffer's drawing room, the Doctor's wasted form sat hunched in a cavernous red leather armchair, his tired eyes glazed as he watched the scene in front of him. A thickset man in his thirties sat astride a bicycle whose rear wheel had been replaced by a heavy brassbound iron drum that rumbled and clattered against its moorings as the man pedalled furiously.

Heffer himself stood at the centre of the room, soberly and immaculately dressed as always, everything perfectly in place down to his golden watch chain, observing progress over the tops of steel rimmed spectacles. He was posed with chin up, one hand curled behind his back, the other held up at chest height, as if in readiness for some dramatic gesture that never came. The dark waistcoat and jacket, every button securely fastened, stretched over his paunch and made him look fatter than he actually was, while his remaining lank hair, brushed forward over his scalp, merely emphasised his baldness. A thin, whiskery moustache, meanwhile, gave him the curious appearance of a teenager still unable to grow a real one.

"Put some effort into it now, Jeffries," he ordered. "Remember, thirty revolutions per minute are required for ignition."

Jeffries clenched his teeth and redoubled his efforts, the noise of the bulky contraption building up to a deafening cacophony as his breathing grew laboured and the sweat started to drip from his chin down onto his shirt. The Doctor's eyes followed the wires attached to the rear of the machine, and his mouth hung slightly open as he watched the large, primitive electric lightbulb flicker and then begin to emit a dim, steady glow.

"You see?" proclaimed Heffer. "It works!"

With a gasp of relief, Jeffries slumped forward over the handlebars and lifted his feet to let the pedals whirl round under their own momentum. The lightbulb instantly winked out and the Doctor looked up at his host.

"Remarkable."

A pursing of the lips was the closest Heffer came to a smile, but his whole body gave a slight wriggle of pleasure at the compliment, as if climbing into a warm bath.

"I was sure you'd understand the implications of my invention, Doctor. The prototype is cumbersome, as you see, but I believe I can increase the efficiency to the point where it could light as many as five or six lamps at once. Imagine it! A whole room could be lit by the muscular effort of a single man."

"And you say the Royal Society weren't impressed?"

Heffer sniffed indignantly.

"Their minds are closed to the new, I fear. They claimed that it was impractical to expect one man to operate the machine throughout the course of an entire evening. Naturally I explained that I was suggesting no such thing. That as each servant became exhausted he would be replaced with another. But..."

"Doctor!"

Heffer was so dumbfounded at the experience of having his monologue interrupted that he stumbled into silence and only stared, moustache bristling furiously, as Jasmine rushed in.

"Doctor!" she cried, enthusiasm radiating from every pore. "I've brought you the thing I found on the beach this morning. See what you think of it! It's so strange..."

"Jasmine!"

Heffer had recovered quickly, and his voice was high pitched and outraged. Jasmine instantly froze, straightened like a soldier, and bowed her head and folded her hands in front of her in a much practiced pose of demure submission. Heffer was not to be mollified.

"Jasmine, what on earth do you think you're doing? How dare you interrupt our conversation?"

"Sorry, sir," came her murmured, automatic response.

"I trust so. I am quite shocked, after all the money I have spent on your education, to find yet again that you are either ignorant or contemptuous of the most basic rules of polite society. If your parents were here they'd be ashamed."

There was a pause, but all she said, in an unchanged tone of voice, was:

"Sorry, sir."

"Go to your room. I don't want to see or hear you again until tomorrow, and then we'll discuss this further."

Jasmine's eyes flickered around the room, and made contact with the Doctor's, but after a moment he looked down at the carpet and she fled. Heffer paused while the sound of her footsteps receded upstairs.

"I must apologise, Doctor. For her parents' sake I've done my best, but I'm afraid my most strenuous efforts to turn the girl into a lady have met with little success."

The old man's hand shifted on the arm of the chair in a dismissive wave.

"She's young."

"Not so very young. She'll be eighteen next month, and it will be high time for me to see about finding her a husband. I'm afraid her attitude and manners won't help. I had considered marrying her myself, but I'm sure you'll understand given this latest scene that my compassion for the girl can only extend so far."

"Good grief."

"I'm sorry?"

The Doctor looked up and spoke more clearly.

"She's very bright, you know."

"Ah, yes. Too bright for her own good, I fear. But she's pretty enough when she can be persuaded to take the trouble, and with my own position I'm sure a decent match can be arranged. Then once she's out of the house perhaps you and I can pursue our scientific discussions without interruption."

The Doctor's chin sank back down onto his chest.

"What fun."

[Soldeed]

The Doctor's cottage was a spacious two storey dwelling made to look modest only by its proximity to the bulk of Heffer's mansion. It was mere minutes after his return that Jasmine's furtive shape could be seen darting across the open ground through the night to knock softly at his front door.

"It's open."

She lost no time in slipping inside and found the old man sitting alone in his cosy little sitting room, a heavy book open on his lap. He gave her a stern look.

"Jasmine. I wasn't expecting to see you. Didn't your guardian tell you to stay in your room?"

"No, he just said he didn't want to see or hear me till morning. And he won't."

The Doctor's shrivelled lips twitched up at the corners.

"A little logic is a dangerous thing. Very well. Take a seat and we'll hide from him together."

She sat on the chair beside him, but just perched on the edge, eagerly restless, and held out her hand palm up.

"This is the thing I wanted to show you. Isn't it strange?"

He blinked, and slowly retrieved his reading glasses from the arm of his chair. Hooking them over his ears, he squinted to focus on the little circle of metal that lay in her hand. It could have been silver, but as the light caught it a band of green luminescence crawled like liquid across its surface. He reached out, and found the object whisked away, Jasmine recoiling as if protecting her valuables from a thief.

Their eyes met, all of them puzzled.

"I'm sorry," said Jasmine. "I... I don't know. Here."

She dropped the disc into his hand and he held it up to the light, turning it this way and that and focussing on the hairline furrow running around its edge. He looked interested, but none too happy.

"Do you know what it is?" asked Jasmine eagerly. "Do you think it's old?"

"No, I think it's very new," he said. "Too new, in fact, for the nineteenth century. Hand me that letter opener, would you?"

She obeyed, and watched him press the point into the corner of the mysterious object, then gasped as he began to twist.

"Oh! What are you doing? Don't break it!"

Too late. The thing popped open in the Doctor's hand leaving him with two identical discs lying in his palm, their exposed innards a honeycomb of minute silver needles. Before he could look closer Jasmine snatched them away from him.

"Stop it!"

She retreated towards the front door, fumbling to fit the two pieces back together. To her relief they clicked easily back into place.

"Jasmine."

Knowing that the shiny trinket was undamaged cleared her head and she looked up guiltily, replaying in her mind what she had just done. The Doctor's weak pale eyes were on her, but he didn't seem angry so much as deeply worried. She glanced down at the disc and closed her fist tightly around it.

"Sorry," she muttered. "I'd better go. I'm not supposed to be out."

The door clicked shut behind her and the Doctor sank deeper into his armchair. He gazed into the empty space where she had been and sighed.

"Oh dear me."

* * * * *

Moments later, she was slipping noiselessly along the hallway of her guardian's mansion, preparing for a lightfoorted ascent of the main staircase. It was a tricky manoeuvre, but she had long since memorised every squeak and after endless practice could make her way up to her room like a ghost in pitch blackness.

"Jasmine!"

She froze at the sound of Heffer's voice. He stood with arms folded in his study doorway.

"In here, please. Now."

Caught. She followed him and waited patiently while he stood at the window with his back to her.

"I believe I made myself quite clear. You were to go to your room and stay there till morning."

"You just said..." No. That wasn't going to help. She lowered her head. "I'm sorry, sir."

"You've disobeyed me and imposed on the Doctor's patience. He's an old man, Jasmine, he was forced to take his leave of me to go and rest. The last thing he needs is you turning up at his door to pester him."

He turned to inspect her, looking her up and down across the twenty foot gap which separated them.

"No doubt you wanted to show him that ridiculous piece of jetsam you picked up off the beach. Hand it over."

"No, it's mine!" The words were out of her mouth and in the air before she could catch them. Heffer's eyes widened in outrage.

"How dare you? Everything you have, the food you eat and the clothes on your back are mine!"

Jasmine unfurled her hand, and looked down at the greenish silver disc still resting in her palm.

"I know that," she murmured. "But this is mine."

"Give it to me this minute or there will be very serious consequences."

She hesitated, torn between the choices of digging herself deeper into this hole, or giving way and apologising monotonously throughout the inevitable lecture until he finally sent her off to imprison herself in her room. She looked over his shoulder, out of the window, and blinked as she seemed to see two moons bright in the dark and cloudy sky. Heffer opened his mouth for some fresh accusation, but stalled as he saw her eyes widen. The two balls of light were bobbing in the air, and drawing closer.

With a piercing crash the window burst inwards, showering razor shards of glass and splintered wood across the room. Heffer was knocked aside like a child by the first of a pair of seven foot tall iron giants, water still trickling from their gleaming oily bodies, jointed limbs turning and swivelling smoothly in their sockets as they strode in, ploughing straight through every obstacle as if walking through a cornfield. The faceless glowing circles at the front of their helmets turned as one on Jasmine.

[Soldeed]

"Jasmine! Run!"

Heffer roared out the command as he charged up behind the second of the advancing robots, the poker from the fireplace clutched in both fists. The breath hissing between his teeth with the effort, he drove the point of the heavy iron rod into the back of the monster's knee, causing its leg to buckle under its own weight. As the other one turned on him, Jasmine did as she was told, and ran.

Down the hall to the front door and out into the open. She stood for an instant looking wildly about her, the hairs on the back of her neck prickling with the expectation of pursuit. There was no possible help to be found nearer than the village two miles away. Hide, then. She was still attempting to consider the options when she found herself running full pelt towards the Doctor's cottage.

"Doctor!" She hammered at his front door. "Are you there? Can you hear me? You've got to let me in! Please, help!"

Nothing. She rattled at the handle but it wouldn't shift. Desperately she ran around the perimeter of the house, trying one window after another. All locked tight and, as always, obscured on the inside by heavy velvet curtains. Her growing panic lent her strength as she dragged a loose rock up off the ground and with a gasp heaved it through the window.

The glass shattered, the noise startling in the silence of the night, and she braved the murderously sharp remains to push her hand through and undo the latch. Impeded by her heavy white dress, Jasmine pulled herself up onto the window frame, and scrambled inside.

She took a moment to catch her breath, all too aware that these walls offered no protection against the unstoppable machine men she had just seen, but still relieved to be no longer out in the open. Where was the Doctor? She looked around, and as she took in her surroundings her mouth fell open and she could only stand and stare, struck dumb by the sheer incomprehensible impossibility of what she was seeing.

She had line of sight through the doorways on both sides, and ahead, so that much of the ground floor of the cottage was laid out before her. And there was nothing here. Nothing at all. Just bare floorboards, cracked, peeling paint, generations' worth of tattered cobwebs, and an inch of dust on every surface. This house was deserted, but that wasn't all. It had been deserted for years. Stunned, all thoughts of peril forgotten, she tottered forward into the hall and stood at the foot of the rotting, uneven stairway. There was the front door, but it was blocked. An eight foot high dark blue rectangular structure stood jammed up against the exit. Like everything else it was so dusty she could barely make out the baffling sign printed in large, bold letters at the top:

"POLICE BOX".

[Soldeed]

With everything she had once thought she understood spinning before her eyes, Jasmine found herself preferring to take her chances outdoors. She squeezed out through the window and made a watchful dash back to the shadows under the walls of her own house, alert for any sound of metal giants approaching. It was quiet. She rounded a corner and almost ran straight into the Doctor.

With a squeak of alarm, she jumped back and eyed him warily, but he just stood motionless, watching her with his pale, weak eyes, leaning on his stick with both hands, wrapped as she had seen him a thousand times before in his shapeless black hat and overcoat, which merged into the darkness of the night. Countless questions, none of which made sense, buzzed in her mind, and all she could do was point desperately at the mansion behind her.

"In the house. Metal men..."

"Yes." The old man's dry, cracked voice was calm and quiet. "I saw. I think the servants all got out the back way. Where's your guardian?"

"He's still in there!"

The Doctor turned his head towards the mansion, his face immobile.

"He saved me!"

He grimaced, and looked down at the ground, his fingers fidgeting on his cane and the lines on his face furrowing deeper in thought.

"Well," he murmured, "We'll see." His gaze fixed on her once more. "Do you still have the thing you found on the beach?"

An instinctive twitch of her left hand drew his eye to where she had kept the metal disc clutched all this time, its edges digging into her flesh.

"Hand it over," he told her. She didn't move, and he sighed. "Jasmine, it's emitting a hypertronic pulse which interacts with your brainwave patterns. That's why you picked it up in the first place and why you don't want to give it away now. It also emits a secondary pulse which those creatures can track. You understand? They know exactly where you are right now. If they haven't come after you yet that means they're betting if they stay quiet you'll eventually go back. That's when they'll grab you."

Jasmine shuddered, the image of the looming, unstoppable, faceless creatures fresh in her mind, but still hesitated. To hold on to the disc felt so right.

"I could hypnotise you, you know," the Doctor said softly. "But to save your guardian I think you'll do this of your own accord."

She saw again pompous, stuffy little Mr Heffer throwing himself at the two monsters with a poker clutched in his plump hands. Before she knew it the Doctor was plucking the mysterious circle of metal from her outstretched palm.

"I couldn't believe it," she said, as if what she had just done was wrong and she had to explain it. "What he did. He was so... heroic."

"Yes. He was probably as surprised as you. That's the trouble with humans. Never know which way they're going to jump until the time comes. And then of course, it's too late."

* * * * *

Moments later, the two of them were slipping into Heffer's study. It was dimly lit by the gas lamps, but deathly quiet. Wheezing a little from the effort of keeping up with Jasmine, the Doctor hobbled over to the electricity generating bicycle, standing unattended in the corner.

"Right..."

Just then a protesting creak of floor boards from the other end of the house warned of the approach of something far heavier than any man. The Doctor tensed, and spoke quickly, his voice hardening.

"Get on the bicycle, Jasmine. And pedal for your life."

"What?"

"Just trust me. I used to do a lot of this sort of thing."

Another weighty footfall, much closer this time, was all the persuasion she needed. Jasmine clambered onto the machine, dragging her unwieldy skirts out of the way of the wheels and cogs, and forced the right pedal down, standing on it with her full weight just to get it moving. Meanwhile the Doctor leaned against the wall, dropping his stick and prising the metal disc apart with his fingernails, talking as he worked.

"There's a great deal of technology packed into this device, and it's designed to keep operating for a long time on a very limited amount of stored energy. That means its power output is extremely low, and that in turn means that to pick up its signal clearly over long distances and through solid objects these things we're facing have to amplify that signal to a very great degree. So all it will take is a fairly minor power surge on the right frequency to blow their receivers and, with any luck, a lot of other vital equipment at the same time. All we need is a little bit of electricity."

He whipped a pair of thick glasses from his waistcoat pocket and, while putting them on, glanced up to see Jasmine straining desperately to keep the heavy dynamo turning at a painfully slow pace.

"Jasmine," he said, quietly but very seriously, "You have to pedal faster than that."

She shifted her grip on the handlebars, using them to drag her weight downwards, well aware that her guardian's servant, twice her size, had needed all his strength to power a single light bulb from this same machine. She strained with everything she had, and then the study door, not ten feet in front of her face, was ripped intact from its hinges by a single gigantic gauntlet. The iron monster stalked into the room, the glowing circle that served it for a face shining a painful white light into her eyes.

[Soldeed]

As the spread fingers of the giant's great steel hand shot out at her face, Jasmine made one last frantic thrust at the pedals of her guardian's absurd electricity generating bicycle. At the same instant the Doctor plucked the light bulb from its setting, smashed it against the wall, and with cool precision touched the almost imperceptibly glowing element to the innards of the disc.

The monster froze. It's head jerked awkwardly to one side and the featureless circle of light at the front of its helmet flickered and went dark. It crashed to the floor like a toppled statue.

For a fraction of an instant a merry light sparkled in the Doctor's dull old eyes.

"There," he said. "Told you so."

Jasmine sagged forward over the handlebars, weak with relief and exhaustion, but the Doctor was instantly on the move. He made his way cautiously over to the felled machine and prodded its shoulder with his stick. A dull clank of metal on metal was the only response.

"Right. Jasmine, go and get a bucket of water."

"Wh... Whur?"

"Do it, please." He seemed to wilt before her eyes now that the crisis was over, suddenly very old and very tired, and his limbs trembled just from the effort of lowering himself into the nearest chair. "Your guardian isn't here," he said wearily once he was settled. "The other one must have taken him away. That means we still have a great deal to do tonight."

By the time Jasmine got back from the kitchen with the requested bucket he had revived a little, and from his slumped position had mustered the energy to start jabbing the metal man's head with his stick.

"Ah, good," he said, glancing at her. "Put it down and help me get the thing's head off."

She did as she was told and knelt on the rug, gingerly touching the cold metal sphere with her fingertips.

"Will it come off?" she asked. "It looks awfully sturdy."

"Normally it would be. It's magnetically locked. But now its power systems are down it should just twist off."

He'd been right about everything so far, she reflected, so she nerved herself to get a good grip on the head with both arms and started to drag it around clockwise. Meanwhile the Doctor leaned back in his chair, his eyes half closed, and began to talk quietly, calmly. Just as he'd lectured her many times before on pre-Renaissance sculpture or Polynesian history.

"I recognise these creatures. They're Klavites. They come from a planet whose surface is entirely covered by water, and as a result their whole technology and way of life has developed in the sea. They have gills, just like fish, and they see any excursion onto dry land as an exciting adventure. Unfortunately there's an unpleasant streak in their culture which holds that the best proof of such daring is to bring back specimens of the more dangerous wildlife. You understand that wildlife, from their perspective, includes you.

"That's what that little metal disc was for. It's bait, just like on a fishing rod. An animal is drawn to it, picks it up, and instinctively hangs onto it. Perhaps it gets attacked by a larger creature which wants to take it away. So by waiting for a day or two after the bait is first taken they ensure that when they put on their tin suits and venture out onto land it will be in the possession of the scariest of the local animals. That gives them the most impressive prize to take home."

Jasmine glanced up, as one fact crystallised amongst those swimming crazily in her mind.

"You're saying this is a costume? There's some sort of gigantic fish man inside?"

"Well, yes and no."

The head came free, and Jasmine fell back as its weight rolled onto her. There was a gush of liquid from inside, and along with it something tiny, blackish green and glistening tumbled onto the floor. Eight inches long, barbed, fish-like tail, tiny spindly arms like a starved baby, a slobbering, gulping mouth, and set deep into the sides of its head a pair of sharp yellow eyes, which as she stared at it in revulsion, stared spitefully right back at her.

Jasmine was startled by her own scream, but the Doctor's voice was still there.

"Put it in the bucket, Jasmine."

She reached out, but recoiled as the thing flipped about and scrabbled at the rug with its little hands.

"It can't hurt you," the Doctor said. "And it's suffocating now, just like a beached fish. Put it in the bucket before it dies."

Jasmine took a deep breath, and with a shudder, feeling the nausea welling up inside her, managed to get a grip on the Klavite's clammy body and with her eyes averted plopped it into the water. It instantly sank to the bottom, out of sight. She rubbed her hand dry on the rug.

"Now what?" she asked.

The Doctor closed his eyes for a moment in thought, and as the papery skin of his face became immobile it looked like that of something long dead, ready to crumble to dust at any second. But with a blink he was back again.

"Look at things from the Klavites' point of view. You've sent two men into a hostile environment and one of them hasn't returned. What do you do?"

"I... send someone to look for him?"

"Exactly. And they'll have been monitoring everything that happened from the ship, which means they won't fall for that trick with the pulse emitter and the bicycle a second time." The Doctor bowed his head and rubbed his hand across his eyes. "We... we have to move first. We should get down to the beach, to the place where you first found the disc."

Jasmine was silent, and he looked up at her with a weak twitch of a smile.

"I know, I know. I can barely get out of this chair." A wavering hand pulled his hat down over his eyes. "I'm sorry, Jasmine. I can't help you any more."

"Doctor!" She shuffled over to him, trying to peer under the brim of his hat as she took his hand. "Please, you have to. There's no one else."

"Yes there is," was the mumbled response. "He's coming now. I've called him and now it's time for me to step aside. Goodbye, Jasmine."

"What are you saying?" Distraught, she swallowed down the tears. "I don't understand."

"Sorry," his exhausted whisper was barely audible now. "So sorry. I wanted so much... To see the woman you'll become."

His voice fell away, and for a moment she thought he had fallen asleep. Then she felt something move under her fingers where she was holding his hand. Starting back, she watched in disbelief as the wrinkled, sagging flesh drew taut and smooth. The Doctor stirred, his head lifted, and visible beneath the brim of his hat was an unfamiliar jawline, a flash of white teeth, a curving, lopsided smile, and a pair of glittering ocean-blue eyes.

[Soldeed]

Jasmine's new Doctor led the way down the cliff, bounding agilely from rock to rock, the water in the bucket containing their alien prisoner slopping from side to side and leaving an unheeded trail of droplets behind him. The ancient felt hat by which she had been able to recognise her own Doctor in the far distance had been discarded to reveal a thick shock of jet black hair swept back from his forehead. The coat was the same, but where once it had hung shapelessly on his stooped, withered frame it now curled about his lean waist and shoulders as the original tailor must have intended. He halted, drawing in a deep breath of the cold night air gusting in from the sea and flexed his hands restlesly, balling them into fists and then spreading out the fingers to full stretch. He turned to Jasmine, struggling along behind him, a look of impatience on his angular, sharply cut features.

"Come on, girl! The old man said we had to get down to the beach. I imagine he knew what he was talking about."

He set the bucket down and she permitted him to grasp her about the waist and lift her down from the latest boulder. She was hopelessly impeded by her heavy, expensive skirts and impractical shoes, all long since ruined by mud and sharp stones.

"He?" she repeated. "I thought you said you were him."

This had been the extent of his explanation as to how he had transformed from the ancient grandfather figure she had known all her life to this brusque, energetic man in his thirties. Announcing that they had no time for further discussion, he had simply ordered her to follow him and she had found herself doing so. Too much had already happened tonight to be stunned by this new impossibility.

"Well, yes," he responded airily, already turning away to retrieve the bucket and set off again down a path which looked like it had been made by sheep. "But changing bodies isn't like buying a new hat, you know..." He clapped his hand on top of his head. "Where's my hat?"

"You threw it away. You said it smelt funny."

"Ah. Anyway, it's too bad the old fool didn't tell you the plan before he checked out. Hopefully it will come back to me."

Jasmine trailed after him, bunching up her skirt to avoid tripping over it.

"Then where is he?" she protested. "What's happened to him?"

"Fascinating existential question," he called back, not turning round. "Which I'd be happy to discuss at a later date. At the moment, in case you've forgotten, your planet is being attacked by aliens."

Five minutes of slipping in the mud, scrambling over boulders and pushing through brambles later, they were down to twenty feet above sea level, amongst the steep and jagged rocks at the mouth of the little cove where Jasmine had first found the silver-green disc that started all this. In an abrupt movement, the Doctor held up a hand to signify a halt.

"Just in time," he whispered, beckoning her forward. "See?"

Immediately beneath where they were concealed, a circle of glowing lights could be seen below the dark and foaming waters. While Jasmine watched, they rose from the depths and around them, sixty feet across, a gleaming bronze circle became visible as with a roar of gushing sea water it broke the surface to form a great dome floating on the ocean, rising to ten feet high at its centre. The last of the water streamed down its armoured sides as, rolling in the waves, it moved at a majestic pace deeper into the cove, beaching itself with a crunch on the pebbles of the beach.

"Right," said the Doctor. "Now let's see what our prisoner can tell us."

He plunged his hand into the bucket and dragged out the Klavite, grasping its body firmly under the flailing, sticklike arms.

"Feeling talkative, little fellow?"

The creature gulped and wriggled in his grip, then in a hoarse whisper gasped back at him:

"Release me!"

Jasmine started back, astonished.

"It can talk?"

One raised eyebrow was visible as the Doctor gave her a sideways look.

"That's more or less a prerequisite for building flying saucers, Jasmine."

"But it speaks English!"

The Doctor waved his free hand dismissively.

"Never mind about that now." He focussed on the struggling alien. "Now then my tiny slimy friend, you're going to give us a few helpful details about the interior layout of your ship."

"Animal!" it spat back. "You think you can bargain? My friends will hunt you down and kill you."

The Doctor's eyes tightened, his narrow face hardening, and he leaned forward.

"Try to understand, you nasty little thing. Humans are social animals. As you've already discovered, they are capable of extreme and unpredictable responses when a member of their family group is threatened. Now my young friend here is closely attached to the man your companion abducted, so either you answer my simple questions, or I hand you over to her, let her snap your arms off, and then we'll both sit and lay bets on whether the asphyxiation or the haemorrhaging will do for you first."

Jasmine saw the Klavite's beady eyes slide over towards her, and was well aware that she just looked confused and frightened, not menacing. But when it spoke again, its bluster was gone.

"If I tell you, you must release me. Put me into the ocean."

"No," said the Doctor patiently. "After you've told us, I'll put you back in your bucket."

The creature shifted in his grip, clenching its tiny fists.

"Very well," it wheezed sullenly. "The knowledge will be useless to you. You'll never gain access to our ship."

"We'll see. Now then. Bearing in mind that one of us is going to stay up here with you just in case your information is less than accurate. All I want to know is, the route from the main access hatch to the control room."

"It's simple. The hatch opens onto the equipment hangar. The middle exit opens onto a corridor to the central hub. From there, the third door to the left leads to the control room."

"Excellent."

The Doctor opened his hand and the Klavite plummeted down to splash into the bucket.

"Doctor!"

Peeking around the rocks that concealed them Jasmine shrank back further into hiding at the sight of a dazzling white rectangle which seemed to flow into existence on the gleaming hull of the saucer. A familiar glowing circle of light set her heart thudding against her ribcage as, one by one, four of the towering metal giants emerged into the night air and made their way with great ringing strides down onto the beach not twenty feet from where they stood.

[Soldeed]

Crunching heavily across the pebbles, the four mechanical giants made their way up the beach towards the cliff path, their bulky forms greying into the night until all that was visible was the bobbing circles of light that served them for faces.

"Excellent," the Doctor announced loudly. "They're going out in force for safety's sake. What they don't know is, while their backs are turned we're going to have their ship."

He moved out of cover and with an athletic leap plunged down the fifteen foot drop to the hull of the saucer, his coat streaming out behind him and his feet clanging hard against the metal. He straightened and looked back up expectantly at Jasmine.

"I... I can't do that," she called down, hovering indecisively at the top of the cliff in her restrictive formal gown. The Doctor just looked impatient.

"Oh, 'course you can. Now hurry up, we don't have time to mess about."

Jasmine had been brought up to drawing rooms and high tea, and her occasional walks across the moor had been discouraged as being inappropriately physical. She swallowed, peering reluctantly over the edge at the hard metal surface below, and the jet black ocean lapping against its edge, but there was no way out of this. Closing her eyes, she hurled herself into the emptiness, was weightless for a moment, and then felt the metal slamming against her shoes, and the Doctor's hands under her armpits to cushion her fall and bring her to a halt. For a moment she was face to face with him, just inches apart.

"Told you so," he said, and his back was turned again.

"See this?" He was already lecturing when she trailed after him to where he crouched, half way up the slope of the saucer's hull. The opening from which the Klavites had emerged had rolled shut, and its outline was barely visible in the moonlight, but there was a glassy white square just next to it that looked like a chunk of river ice. "Very high tech," the Doctor was saying. "It opens the door in response to one of a possible eighteen billion combinations of sub-etheric signals, and the right combination changes every thirtieth of a second in accordance with a highly complex mathematical algorithm, known only to the Klavites, which allows them to synchronise the signal emitted by their xenosuits with the one expected by the shipboard computer."

There was a pause.

"I didn't understand any of that," admitted Jasmine. "Do you mean we can't get in?"

The Doctor held up the index finger of his left hand, then turned over his right with a flourish as if performing a magic trick, to reveal a jagged lump of rock. Jasmine flinched back as he lifted it and brought it down hard, shattering the opening mechanism into a thousand pieces with a single blow. Tossing the rock away over his shoulder, he reached into the broken hole, twisted something, pressed down on something else, and pulled another thing out, and the ship's door rolled open obediently like an unfurling red carpet.

The Doctor gave her a twisted smile and a shrug.

"Overcomplicated and fragile, as you can see. They would have been better off putting a chair under the handle."

Jasmine leaned over cautiously to look inside, and drew back with a gasp.

"It's full of water!"

It was true. The brightly lit chamber revealed beneath their feet was filled to the very brim with liquid, slopping over the edge a little as the ship rolled in the waves.

"What were you expecting?" The Doctor didn't hesitate, but slipped over the side into the water, which submerged him almost to the chin. "I already told you the Klavites are fish creatures. As far as they're concerned, this is a five-star comfy environment. See there?"

He pointed, and by craning her neck Jasmine was able to see further inside the water-filled room, to where one of the metal giants squatted motionless in the corner. Thankfully its helmet light was dark. It was motionless, and empty.

"One suit means only one crewmember left on board," the Doctor stated. "Shouldn't present you with too much of a problem."

Something distracted Jasmine's attention.

"Doctor! The lights on top of the saucer - they're getting brighter!"

"Ah, right. That means they're getting ready to take off."

"Take off?"

"It's to be expected," said the Doctor calmly. "Every alarm on the ship will have sounded when we opened that door. The pilot's best chance of getting rid of us is to get airborne and try to shake us off. Don't worry. We have a minute or two before he can build up power."

With that he took a deep breath and plunged beneath the surface. As the foam and ripples of his disappearance subsided, he was visible struggling with a square hatch, no more than a foot across, set half way up the wall of the chamber. After a few moments, he dragged the sliding door open with his fingernails and resurfaced, breathing hard.

"Good!" He raked his hands back through his air to push it out of his eyes. "It's as I thought; the internal doors are sturdy enough to stand up to a vacuum in case of hull puncture, but they had no reason to make the locking mechanisms anything special. One good heave to break the magnetic seal and it's like peeling a banana. Now, you remember what the little fellow said about the route to the control room?"

"Yes," said Jasmine, wondering why he was asking her this. "Down the corridor, then third on the left."

"That's right." The Doctor pulled himself up out of the chamber, water streaming from his soaked clothes. "Well, then..." He held out a hand towards the opening as if offering her a seat at the dining table. "In you go."

[Soldeed]

The Doctor looked expectant, standing aside and waiting for Jasmine to plunge into the water-filled chamber. She backed away.

"I'm not going in there."

His brow furrowed.

"What do you mean you're not going in there? I thought you wanted to save your guardian."

"But..." Her eyes darted nervously between him and the opening in the saucer's hull.

"I can't do it," he said patiently. "You saw the size of the hatch in there. It'll be a tight squeeze even for you, let alone for my broad and manly shoulders."

She edged forward, peering over the side into the dazzlingly lit water. The tiny square hatch was three feet below the surface and could have led anywhere. She shrank back.

"I can't."

She looked up at the Doctor appealing to him with wide, frightened eyes, but his face was darkening by the second.

"Can't?" he repeated harshly. "Why did you think I brought you along? To hold my coat? The old man had some regard for you, Jasmine. He thought you had potential. Are you going to prove him wrong? Would you prefer to be the simpering ballroom ornament your guardian always wanted?"

She felt a hard lump rising in her throat and the tears prickling in her eyes.

"I ca..."

The stinging pain in her cheek was so unexpected, and such a new experience for her, that it took an instant to realise that he had struck her.

"Don't you dare start snivelling now."

She placed a hand to her reddening cheek, swallowed, and whispered:

"My Doctor would never have done that."

"Quite possibly. But he's gone now. So's your guardian and all your servants. You've got nothing left except you and... ow!"

The Doctor rubbed his own smarting cheek, looking reproachful.

"That was astonishingly painful."

"Don't ever touch me again!"

The sudden overflow of anger coursed exhilaratingly through her, running hot through her veins. An instant later it was draining away to be replaced by a guilty sense of disbelief at what she had just done. She tensed for the Doctor's reaction, but he held up his hands.

"Understood."

He let his hands fall, and glanced over at the lights of the centre of the saucer. They were very bright now, and a low hum was audible, vibrating the metal beneath their feet.

"Look, they're almost ready to take off. There's no more time. If you're not going to do it, then let's go. With luck we can stay out of the Klavites' way in the dark."

Her eyes returned to the opening in the ship's hull. It was no less frightening than before, but somehow the idea of doing something frightening no longer seemed so outlandish.

"Fine," she muttered, and scowling hurled herself with a mighty splash into the water. She resurfaced clutching the edge, her elegantly curled hairdo flattened and ruined, heavy skirts floating about her, to find the Doctor kneeling down to speak.

"Take deep breaths," he said. "You need to oxygenate your bloodstream. Now, if it helps, try to imagine yourself on a boat that's been invaded by some kind of huge, terrifying sea monster squeezing its way along the corridors. Because that's very much how that little Klavite is going to see you."

"But..." Jasmine drew air deep into her lungs as instructed. "Won't it have guns and things?"

"Well, the point of this scheme is that it's going to take off in a moment to try and get rid of us, and it'll be far too busy at the controls to take any other action. Once it realises you're inside, it'll know that as long as it keeps flying at speed you have to stay away from the exit hatch, and it'll expect you to drown long before you stumble on the control room. What it doesn't know is, you know exactly where the control room is and you'll be there a lot sooner than it thinks."

"Right." Shivering in the cold water, Jasmine frowned worriedly. "But what happens when I get to the control room?"

"Very simple. Catch the Klavite or just keep it away from the controls. Either way, then you can just let nature take its course."

She considered this.

"But... doesn't that mean the ship will..."

"Crash, yes. That's the idea." The hull vibration was steadying and intensifying and the Doctor jumped briskly to his feet. "Don't worry." He clanked his heel against the metal a couple of times. "These ships are built to survive the hazards of deep space. Once it's in flight, the molecular cohesion of the hull is reinforced by raw energy from the reactor core. Smashing it into a cliff may crumple it slightly, but you'll survive."

Jasmine leaned her forehead against her hands where they gripped the side of the entrance chamber, already ruing the mad impulse which had led to agree to this scheme. But it was too late now. As the body of the ship began to stir in the water, the Doctor ran down the slope of the saucer's side and jumped ashore. He turned to wave.

"Good luck! No time to waste, now. If you're not well inside by the time they've built up some speed you'll be sucked out."

The ship rose clear of the waves, and began to glide steadily forward towards the mouth of the bay. Jasmine took a last look round at the cliffs and stars, then took a deep breath and plunged beneath the water.

[Soldeed]

As the water closed over her head, Jasmine instinctively squeezed her eyes shut, then forced herself to open them. At least it was crystal clear and brightly lit; she could see the little hatchway in front of her as if in broad daylight. Refusing to let herself stop and think, she jammed her head and shoulders into the gap and forced her way forward.

It was so close, it was like being swallowed by a snake. She had to turn diagonally to fit through, and cursed her layers of skirts and petticoats as she dragged them through after her. Now, enclosed in a waterfilled corridor no wider than the hatch itself, she wriggled determinedly deeper into the spacecraft, cheeks puffed outwards with the air she had crammed into her body, until she came up against the metal doors at the far end.

The Doctor had pried open just such a door with his fingernails, and assured her she could do the same. She clawed at the hairline gap running down the centre of the opening, deliberately at first, then with a gathering sense of desperation as the sound of the blood pounding in her ears grew ever more intense and the air in her lungs grew stale. At last she found purchase, and expended more precious energy forcing the magnetised doors apart.

Now at least she was swimming free, floating out of the confines of the corridor into a five foot high, ten foot wide circular room which, to the Klavites, must have seemed a grand chamber. But it was too late. She was suffocating, pressing her lips together to hold in air that was now of little use to her. It dawned on her that this plan, to which she had agreed in the heat of the moment, was madness. She couldn't force open another door, struggle down another corridor, take over the control room and force the Doctor's hoped for crash, all on the single breath of air she had taken with her. Nobody could. She was going to drown, trapped in this flying coffin, in a matter of seconds now.

She twisted around, the swelling panic telling her to make a rush back to the exit, the knowledge immoveable that this would be fatal with the ship now in flight, and then she saw it. A silver trail of bubbles, tiny at first then rapidly growing to the size of her fist, streamed in through the hatch and floated up above her head. All at once she understood the part of the plan the Doctor hadn't had time, or had forgotten, to explain. With the water that filled the interior of the ship dragged out and spilled as the craft picked up speed, something had to come in to replace it. Just a little bit of precious air.

Jasmine expelled the little she had been able to retain in her lungs, and pressing her feet against the floor pushed her face up into the bulging pocket of gas collecting in the curve of the ceiling. It was like waking from a nightmare. She gasped and choked, weeping with relief, and only the support of the water that still surrounded her prevented her from buckling at the knees and collapsing weakly to the floor.

She must have stayed there, breathing hard in the steadily expanding treasure trove of oxygen, for several minutes before her head cleared and the strength flowed back into her limbs. She was alive, and now it just needed one more effort to do what had been asked of her. She drew down one more lung stretching gulp of air and ducked below the surface again.

Third hatch on the left. She knew what she was doing this time and the doors parted easily under her fingertips. Ten feet down yet another tight squeeze of a corridor, to another set of doors that she pulled apart. Then she was pushing herself forward into another open chamber, this one filled to its furthest corners with nothing but water. A curving viewscreen took up one entire wall, and showed a hellish image of her familiar clifftops repainted a bloody red and black and flashing past at a speed she couldn't have dreamt of. At the very centre, there was a cylindrical column of controls, and gripping the levers with its tiny hands was an ugly little fish creature just like the one she and the Doctor had captured earlier that night.

It twisted to stare at her, its malevolent little eyes widening into yellow orbs as she dragged herself from the grip of the corridor and forward. She saw it hesitate, loosening its grasp on the levers, only to grab them again as the ship lurched horrifyingly to the right, then as she reached forward, stretching her hand out towards its tail, it yielded to the inevitable and flitted away out of range, darting agilely to the other side of the room.

There was no point in chasing after it. This was the Klavite's environment and by comparison Jasmine was as clumsy as a beached whale. Instead she gripped between finger and thumb the tiny central lever it had been using to steer, and experimentally twitched it to one side.

The craft reacted instantly. Where it had been slewing gradually down and to the left, heading for a crash into the ocean, it leapt up into the air and was immediately hundreds of feet above the clifftops. The Doctor had wanted a crash, she knew, but where? As her uncertain touch on the sensitive controls took them in a crazed succession of violent swerves and zigzags, she saw through the viewscreen that whatever roundabout route the pilot had taken was only now bringing them back home. Lit up in red, she could make out Heffer's mansion, her home for all these years, with the Doctor's little house buried in its shadow, and highlighted like bright white stars she could see figures hurtling closer. The four Klavites in what the Doctor had called xenosuits, and a tiny, fleeing shape, his coat streaming out behind him as, with an astonishing turn of speed, they gained on him with every pace. He reached the sanctuary of his own home and vanished inside, but they were closing in. Surrounding him.

Only one thing to do. Clenching her teeth to maintain focus as her lungful of air grew stale once more, Jasmine used the most delicate touch she could muster to bring the ship into a shallow descent, thundering towards the robotic monsters at high speed. She would save the Doctor in the nick of time.

Then out of the corner of her eye she saw a movement. The lone Klavite was swimming directly at her, and now it was gripping some kind of gleaming silver rifle the size of a knitting needle. Jasmine dropped the controls, flinging up her arm protectively as a beam of pure reddish white light slashed out at her face, and she lost half of her air in an exclamation of pain and shock as it cut into her wrist like a knife, her blood mingling with the water before her eyes like a swirling black mist.

The next second - impact. The metal saucer smashed into the side of the mansion, scattering it into a ruined mess of bricks and stones for hundreds of yards around as if it had been blown apart with a thousand tons of gunpowder. It tore a great muddy furrow across the lawn and destroyed the Doctor's house too as if it had been built of matchwood. Then it struck a vast granite boulder, flipped over onto its back, and lay still.

[Soldeed]

For long minutes after the crash, everything was quiet. The only sound or movement was the steady stream of water flowing from the upturned exit hatch, until at last it was all poured away and that ceased as well.

Then, with much straining and cursing, Jasmine squeezed herself out through the hatch and tumbled helplessly down into the muddy puddle which had formed below. She sat there, utterly exhausted, mouth hanging open, wrist bleeding, soaked, bedraggled hair plastered over her shoulders and forehead, wrapped in the torn and filthy rags which had once been her finest white dress. With an effort, she lifted her head and dumbfoundedly took in the carnage about her.

Her guardian's house, her home, was completely destroyed right down to the foundations. It looked like an archaeological dig. The four Klavite mechanical giants lay crumpled and motionless amongst the rubble. But what stung her to her feet was the sight of the Doctor's house, in which she had seen him take refuge just moments before, lying so ruined she could barely make out where it had stood. Nothing could possibly have survived.

"Oh God," she muttered. "What have I done?"

At a stumbling run, tripping repeatedly over loose bricks, she made her way forward, clinging to the insane hope that he could somehow still be alive. He always knew what to do. He was always in control. It was inconceivable this stupid accident could get the better of him. But there was scarcely one stone still standing upon another. The only thing that seemed to have miraculously remained intact was the mysterious, eight foot tall blue box.

Jasmine advanced on it cautiously. It had been flung aside into a mound of loose earth, but although partially buried had amazingly stayed upright. As she drew near, the flimsy looking wooden door opened half way, and the Doctor's head popped cautiously out.

"Jasmine!"

She was so busy feeling the same sentiment herself that she missed the relief in his voice. He flung the door open and ran across to her, placed his hands agitatedly on her forehead, then her shoulders, as if expecting to detect some signs of damage under his fingertips. He felt his way down her arms, then took her hands and turned them over to inspect the gash on her wrist.

"Are you all right? Are you hurt?"

"I'm..." She couldn't express how she felt. "I'm very tired."

He released her abruptly and stepped back.

"That's to be expected." He regarded her for a moment, head angled quizzically on one side. "I can't believe I made you do that, Jasmine. It's a miracle you weren't killed."

"It's all right," she said, her weariness manifesting itself as a kind of mellow feeling that made it impossible to get upset about anything. "I know why you did it."

"Well. I promise not to bully you into doing anything like that ever again."

"And I," Jasmine found herself saying, "Promise not to let you."

He raised his eyebrows, then with a half smile bobbed his head in a kind of perfunctory bow of acknowledgement. The next moment, his eyes left hers and with an air of bemusement he was surveying the wreckage that surrounded them

"Oh my. What exactly happened here? I wasn't watching the monitor."

Jasmine pointed.

"I crashed the saucer into everything."

"Oh, I see." The Doctor eyed the fallen Klavites and nodded approvingly. "They need to recharge from their ship every few hours, so I was just going to hide out in the Tardis and let them wind down. But this is much better. Leaves us free to concentrate on the reason we started all this." He switched his gaze to the battered hulk of the saucer and drew from his coat pocket a silvery metal device the shape and size of a fountain pen but studded with mysterious polygonal attachments at one end. "Let us see if we can find your guardian."

With a stab of shame Jasmine realised she had forgotten they were supposed to be saving Heffer from his imprisonment on the Klavite ship, and she picked her feet up, trying to recover a sense of purpose as she followed the Doctor back to the saucer.

"They couldn't have fitted him down the main the corridor," he remarked, crouching down to gain access to the up ended entrance chamber. "So if he's here this is where he'll be."

Kneeling, Jasmine watched him run the device around the four foot square outline of a hatch that took up most of one wall of the chamber. It emitted a high pitched whine just on the edge of hearing as he worked.

"You can open it?" she asked. "Why didn't you just do that in the first place? I wouldn't have had to all that wriggling around down flooded corridors."

"Now she's criticising," he muttered to himself, then spoke up. "This isn't like one of those flimsy internal doors, Jasmine. It's designed to keep a violent living creature safely penned up so the Klavites can take their armour off in safety. It'll be a few minutes, so make yourself comfortable."

That, at least, was an easy order to follow, and she let her weary, aching limbs go slack as she watched him work his way inch by inch around the hatch, his head cocked on one side listening for she knew not what. Swallowing emptily in her dry throat, she tried not to imagine what she was going to see when this door was finally opened.

There was a clunk. The Doctor placed his palm against the door to hold it closed.

"You might want to stay back."

She shuffled backwards just a few inches, her eyes never leaving the hatch, and he didn't press the point. Carefully he let the door swing open, and Heffer's limp body flopped out to fall heavily to the earth.

The Doctor was crouched over him in a second, heedless of Jasmine's strangled cry, pressing two fingers against the man's throat. He sighed.

"No, he's dead. Neck broken."

Jasmine shoved her way forward to see, and instantly wished she hadn't. Heffer's head lolled at a hideous, unnatural angle on his shoulders, his half open eyes staring glassily into nothing.

"I killed him?" she whispered. "In the crash?"

The Doctor pulled back to give her room.

"No, he's been dead for a while," he said heavily. "I think they must have killed him straight away. Seems they weren't looking for live specimens on this trip."

Jasmine looked down at the body of her guardian, who she had disliked and ridiculed all her life, and who had died to protect her. She laid her fingertips on his cold, clammy white cheek.

"I never knew him."

She felt the Doctor's hand on her shoulder.

"I'm sorry, Jasmine."

[Soldeed]

The first rays of dawn sparkled on the sea as Jasmine and the Doctor stood on a rocky outcrop just a few feet above the foaming waves, carrying three buckets between them. They had retrieved four Klavites, dazed but unhurt, from the broken remains of their xenosuits, and one from the crashed flying saucer, and put them in water in time to save their lives. The one they had left by the shore during the night made six.

"It's better than they deserve," said Jasmine, peering down at the contents of the bucket she held. "Murderous little creatures."

The Doctor laid his two buckets down on the stone and glanced over at her.

"You're all right with it? It was your guardian they killed."

She winced painfully at the memory but shrugged the thought away.

"What else could we do?" A half forgotten memory from the chaos of the night's events returned to her. "When you told that one I'd tear its arms off if it didn't help us. You know I never could have done that, don't you?"

The Doctor frowned reproachfully.

"Jasmine, if I thought you were capable of ripping the limbs off a defenceless, sentient living creature, I doubt I'd have been hanging around all these years."

She smiled in a melancholy way, and poured the contents of her bucket into the ocean. Watched the Klavites disappear into the blackish green depths of their new home. The Doctor did the same with the first of his, then the second.

"Ignorant primitive!"

They both drew back, startled, at the sight of one of the Klavites clinging on to the bucket handle with its tiny, monkey-like hands, its spindly arms stretching out under the stress of its own weight and its beady little yellow eyes glaring at them in defiance.

"You think you've won?" it hissed, gills heaving in the dry air. "You are nothing to us. Nothing! If it takes years, we will find a way back to our ship, we will repair the damage you have done, and then we will hunt you down like the animals you are!"

The Doctor gripped it about the body in one hand and disengaged it from its handholds.

"You'll find that rather difficult," he told it. "Didn't want to spook the natives by leaving a flying saucer lying around, so I told Jasmine how to invert the gravity well. Very dangerous things, those. Should be banned. By now it'll have sucked itself into oblivion." The only reply was a stuttering gasp of absolute impotent fury. He shook his head. "Now on your way. Say hello to the sharks for me."

He threw the alien away, and it vanished with a splash into the sea.

* * * * *

It had been a long night. They made a slow journey back up to the clifftops and to the rubble which was all that remained of the mansion Jasmine had once called home. The Doctor headed straight for the strange rectangular blue box which was the only manmade object that remained intact.

"He's really gone," Jasmine reflected, standing lost amongst the ruins. "I still can't believe it. He's always been around. A lot of the time I wished he wasn't."

The Doctor turned.

"Did he have family?" he asked. He didn't seem that interested, just making a perfunctory effort to be polite.

"No. No, in fact I think the house comes to me."

There was a moment's silence while they both took a look at the devastation around them.

"Um, well," she went on. "I think he had a lot of money and such as well."

He nodded understanding.

"What are you going to do?" she asked.

The Doctor spread his hands out in front of him, palms down, and watched in seeming fascination the fresh young skin he saw there.

"Well," he said. "It seems my retirement is over. Sitting watching the sea, shuffling from one day to the next, complaining about my aches and pains, seemed a decent enough life at the time, but this..." He tilted his head back and gazed up at the pale blue of the morning sky. "This is like waking up from a dull dream. It's like trading monochrome for colour. Everything I can see and sense is intensifed a hundred times, and I suddenly remember all the things I used to love about life, that I haven't done for all these years. I have the whole universe of time and space to explore, and as long as I've lived I've still only seen a tiny fraction of it." He dropped his eyes back to Jasmine. "I've been stuck on this planet for far too long. I'm leaving. Right now."

With that, he walked the rest of the way to the blue box, pushed open the door, and vanished inside.

Jasmine stood there alone in her ruined, filthy dress, perfectly lost for an idea as to what she should do now. After a few seconds the Doctor poked his head back around the door.

"Are you coming?"

She glanced around at the emptiness that surrounded her.

"Yes."

She trotted over to him, and he stood aside to let her squeeze past him into the Tardis, then pushed the door shut with a clunk. Moments later there was an unearthly wheezing, groaning sound and the rising sun saw nothing but the ruins of an old house lying unattended on an empty clifftop.

END

[armadillozenith]

Hey, Soldeed, great! I liked it. Both old and new Doctors came alive as characters, and the new is every bit Richard E. Grant.
Thanks for the pleasure!

Graham