Doctor Who_ Beltempest Part 12

The captain of Saketh's ship had directed his vessel as Saketh had ordered. The speed with which they had fallen from orbit would have ruined a ship had it been through any atmosphere less than a near vacuum. The ice would have wrecked them if it had been anything other than the thinnest of crusts; the ocean would have crushed them if it had been any deeper than it was when their momentum had finally expired. They were lucky. Others were not. Ignoring Saketh's radio calls, other ships had elected to leave the orbit of Belannia XII.

The radiation against which they had been warned, flaring suddenly, had caught them all.

Sam did not know how many of the refugees, the crews, were dead, or how many more were dying. All she knew was that she couldn't do anything about it.

Only Saketh could do that.

He had responded to the calls of help. Taking the captain's launch he had left the ship. They had felt the Shockwave as his engines had burned through the ice crust, then nothing.

Sam watched the glow of boiling ice and steam fade far above the observation gallery windows, fade into the slushy grey ma.s.s of semiliquid ice through which they drifted.

It wasn't her fault. There was nothing she could do. She had saved as many as she could.

Powerless, she found comfort with the refugees huddled together in the observation deck; with them, she watched the ocean of ice that lay beyond the windows.

The ocean was unnamed; so too was the moon lacking any designation but a number. As a moon it wasn't huge. Three thousand-odd kilometres in diameter. Fifteen hundred or so to the rocky core. From low orbit its surface had looked like wet hair -the ropy stains of ice creva.s.ses staining the smooth, mottled, blue-white surface. Volcanic ice boiled in places from the interior, bursting the crust, to erupt in white shining fountains, to lay a smooth new skin across the old. Of course, Sam had had very little opportunity to study the exterior of the moon before the ship smashed through the ice crust with a concussion she felt sure would open the hull.

Again they had been lucky. There had been time to search out a thin layer - an area of geological weakness, one further weakened by their jets as they had made their approach.

Now they were beneath the surface. Ice cradled them, a freezing womb pressing close against the windows, mottled a brilliant blue-white in the light from the ship, fading rapidly into a greenish murk beyond the range of the lights.

Shapes drifted within it, curious, sleek, moving at speed through the chill slurry.

She was reminded of sharks - the endless, restless movement. It used to be thought that sharks moved to breathe, to pa.s.s water through gills and extract the life-giving oxygen. The temperature outside the ship fluctuated, a few degrees above freezing; pressure kept the slurry semiliquid. Perhaps the sharks here also remained in motion; to stop was to freeze, and that meant death.

'They say the landscape of h.e.l.l is one of flame. Maybe they're wrong.'

Denadi.

She had forgotten the old priest. He was beside her now and she hadn't seen him arrive.

She turned her face away in embarra.s.sment, shamed by the memory of her last words to him. Such arrogance. How could she have been that stupid?

'There is nothing to apologise for. I told you: I will not ask you to subscribe to another's code, or judgement. You have choice.' He hesitated.'You could choose to look at me if you wish.'

Sam bit her lip. Blue-white shapes drifted past the windows, lumps of ice in the semiliquid ma.s.s. Her eyes followed the slurry as it streamed past the windows, her gaze pa.s.sing across the huddled shapes of refugees framed against the dark expanse, moving from face to fearful face, to alight eventually on his.

'That's better. You could even choose to smile.'

That she could not manage. 'I was rude to you. Arrogant. I thought I knew best.' As an apology it was little enough, but it would have to do.

'We all think that.Why else would we follow our chosen paths?'

Sam frowned. 'For the sake of others?'

'Ah.' Denadi smiled and sighed at the same time, shrugged his robes further up his shoulders, burrowed into them like an animal digging in for winter. "The concept of self-sacrifice. Very n.o.ble. Even saints thought they were doing the best by their people. Why else endure such pain?'

Sam sighed.'Beats me.'

'I know what you mean.'

Sam found an unwanted smile playing at the corner of her lips. She tried to make it go away but it wouldn't. 'I thought you guys were supposed to have all the answers.'

'Answers to what?'

'I dunno. For starters let's try who, what, where and why with a side order of how to follow.'

'You ask hard questions, Sam Jones.'

'Why shouldn't I? I ask them of myself almost every day.'

'But with what consequences?' Sam considered. 'I'm not sure I understand.'

'How does asking yourself the questions so constantly make you feel?'

'Well... I don't know. I've never really thought. There are things I want to do. I don't know how to achieve these things. I ask questions, I formulate answers and then I achieve the things I want.' She waited, but Denadi did not reply. 'Isn't that what everyone does?"

Sam heard the sound of skin rubbing on skin. Denadi was rubbing the tips of his thick fingers and thumbs together distractedly.'What if you did not have to ask questions?'

'Wouldn't that imply a lack of choice?'

'Yes.'

'I don't see your point.'

'Perhaps there isn't a point. It's just a conversation. But you didn't answer my question.'

Sam bit her lip. 'Asking questions reminds me I have choices. Like I can help people and help myself. Like I can decide for myself what I want to do.'

'If you determine the right answers to the right questions.'

'Of course.'

'But what if you don't? What if your judgement is impaired? What if you think you have the answer, think you have what you want but it never seems to work the way you planned?'

'Well, I've never -' Sam stopped. She frowned. Studied the ice. Listened to the murmurings of the refugees. She sighed. "That seems to be happening to me more and more these days.' Another pause. 'It makes me feel bad. You know, inadequate, stupid. As if there's something wrong with my judgement. As if there's something wrong with me.'

Denadi nodded slowly.

'And what if your judgement costs lives?'

Sam turned away, eyes gazing inward: a red car, a dying girl, a small fleet of dying refugees.

Don't ask me that. I don't want to answer that!

Denadi spoke again, hushed words, an apology.

She responded with anger. 'I know what you're doing. You're trying to make me feel insecure. Trying to tell me there's nothing I can do to help these people.You want me to feel bad so I'll listen to your words of comfort. I won't turn to your religion, Father. I can't, so don't try to make me!'

'Believe me, I wasn't trying to -'

'Just shut up!' The blood was red like her car, fitted her like a glove .'Shut up and leave me alone! It's you lot that killed her! You killed her with guilt and you're not going to kill me too!'

She scrambled to her feet, turned to leave. She had to go. Now. To run, to get away from this madness that was destroying her from inside.

The door opened before she could reach it. The captain was there. His expression was one of shock.

'Saketh. He's on the surface. He's alive. So are the other refugees. He saved them. He says he can save all of us.'

'The radiation -' Sam felt her mind spinning out of control. There was no way it could have decayed to safe levels.'How could he-?'

'I don't know,' the captain said. 'He's asking for you.'

Sam swung her head wildly from side to side. It was too much. 'No. He can't... I can't... it'stoo much -'

But the refugees were on their feet, a restless movement, rising to urgency with their voices, desperate cries that demanded attention, and they pushed Sam aside in their need to confront the captain.

'Saketh.'

'Where is he?'

'Can he save us?'

'Take us to him!'

'Saketh!'

'Saketh! '

Donarrold Lesbert Smoot, Major General in the Belannian People's Armed Forces, stumped and huffed his way around the starship's holding cell. His boots crashed deafeningly upon the steel-plated floor. His voice was the sound of grinding rocks, his jaw thrust forward and a little to one side in an arrogant, urgent, irritating manner. 'Why did I shoot you? What do you mean, whygt; I was under orders to protect a military installation. He -' a thumb jerked in the Doctor's direction - 'was an alien. And you -' Smoot's gaze raked across Conaway's face. 'Well, we both know I've been wanting to shoot you for years.'

Conaway sighed, rubbed her fingers against her aching temples. 'Funny how our old mistakes come back to haunt us.'

'Are you... youdare ... suggest... that our marriage was a...' Smoot blinked, groped desperately through a one-trick vocabulary for a less negative word.'An... error of judgement?' He finally got the words, imaginatively enough for him.

Conaway smiled a tiger smile.'Not suggesting, no.'

Smoot frowned as he considered the implied insult. His jaw moved from side to side. Left, right, left right. Military square time. His jaw was clearly academy-trained. Conaway heard the familiar sound of expensively capped teeth grinding.

Smoot suddenly bellowed without breaking stride, 'What were you doing on Belannia XXI-Alpha anyway? The entire moon is cla.s.sified off-limits to civilians.'

'I'm not a civilian.' The new voice caused Conaway to glance casually sideways and Smoot to turn his head with a sharpness that, had he been a less finely tuned instrument of a man, would undoubtedly have induced severe whiplash. In a far comer of the cell, the Doctor struggled to his feet, wobbled slighdy, waved his arms for balance. 'I'm a Time Lord,' he added helpfully.

Smoot gestured with his gun. 'See,' he shouted at Conaway. 'Alien. Told you.'

Conaway added,'And we have clearance from the Government.'

Smoot stopped pacing. The sudden absence of crashing boots was slightly unnerving.

'We're here to save your solar system, Major Smoot.' The Doctor smiled innocently, then frowned in puzzlement. 'Is there something wrong with the ventilation system? Or is dial your teeth I hear grinding?'

'Pa.s.ses,' snapped Smoot.

Conaway handed them over.

Smoot examined them briefly, turned smartly on one heel and left the cell.

The door clicked officiously into place behind him, locking them in.

The Doctor smiled lopsidedty. 'Married? Well done. An excellent inst.i.tution. Not for me, of course, always had a bit of a problem with the "till death us do part" bit. But tell me.' His voice lowered conspiratorially.'What on Earth did you ever see in the fellow?'

Conaway shook her head, a mixture of resignation and anger -mostly directed at herself. 'I was very young, all right?' she muttered defensively.

'Ah, youth... Been there, done that.' The Doctor added, 'Several times, in fact.'

Perhaps predictably, Conaway did not smile.

While they were waiting for Smoot to arrive, Conaway felt a deep thrumming vibration run through the deckplates of the holding cell. The engines had fired up. They were moving.

She wondered where.

The Doctor shook his head. 'I don't know.' Conaway looked at him sharply, then let the moment pa.s.s.

For his part the Doctor occupied his time in the holding cell without showing one fraction of impatience or anger. As the hours stretched on and Conaway's nerves began to fray, the Doctor simply remained in the lotus position, taking objects one by one from his pockets and a.s.sembling them in what seemed to be a random order on the floor in front of him.

'If this is some feeble attempt to entertain me or divert my attention away from our predicament it won't work.'

The Doctor smiled distractedly, but otherwise did not reply.

Conaway frowned.

'I'm not going to ask.'

The Doctor glanced briefly up.'Respectful. I like that. Thank you.'

Conaway waited. The Doctor continued to a.s.semble items taken from his pockets. The three-dimensional montage taking shape before him defied description, sense or logic. She wasn't even sure how it stayed upright. She waited.

Eventually he looked up. 'You've no idea how many people I've known, who I've been locked in a prison cell with, and who want to know the last little detail about everything. And they expect me to be able to provide it for them. And at the drop of a hat.'

'Really?' Conaway affected disinterest.

'Oh yes. I consider the behaviour to be self-obsessed at the very least.'

'I see.'