Doctor Who_ The Fall Of Yquatine Part 14

She took out her wallet and slid something across the tabletop towards him. He picked it up and looked at it. It was a photo of a girl in her mid-teens. She had a rather gawky face with ma.s.ses of brown hair, a large nose and a lopsided smile. Not exactly ugly, not exactly pretty. The sort of girl who could possibly grow into an attractive woman, but the bets were off. She was looking past the camera at something, head half turned, there was a wall behind her, out of focus, festooned with pictures or posters.

Why was she showing him this? Who was this? Her sister?

Then Fitz realised. He looked from Arielle to the picture and back again. 'It's you,' he whispered.

His heart seemed to sink to his boots. He could see the ghost of the girl in the photo in Arielle's face, in her eyes. He tried to speak, but he couldn't say a word.

She took the picture from his hands and slipped it away. Her eyes had grown distant, as though she was sitting alone. 'Yes,' she said, in a small voice. 'The old me. The real me.'

'You look... so different.'

She was staring at him, her eyes wide, intense. 'I don't know how I'd look now if it wasn't for the surgery.'

His hand found hers. He hated hospitals, and the word 'surgery' set his teeth on edge. He wasn't sure he wanted to hear what she had so say. 'What... what was wrong with you?'

'Nothing,' said Arielle. 'I was totally healthy in mind and body. Trouble was, I was ugly. Gawky. Big nose, uneven teeth, stubby little fingers: She let go of Fitz's hand, splayed her long, well-manicured fingers out on the table. 'That all changed because of my mother.'

Realisation dawned on Fitz. 'She made you have cosmetic surgery?'

Arielle nodded. 'Facial reconstruction, skin grafts, limb lengthening the best biomedics money could buy.'

'Why?'

'My parents are rich.' She said it like a confession. 'Father owns Markhof Mining Corporation; Mother is big in the media. Image is all important. I was a disappointment to Mother and like a fool I eventually gave in to her pestering. She kept on that I didn't have to be ugly, that I could be beautiful.'

'Why did you agree? It's what's inside that counts I know it sounds trite, but it's true.'

'I know that now,' whispered Arielle. 'I was fourteen. I was too meek and mild to be rebellious and I wanted to please Mother. Now look at me.'

Fitz looked at her. He couldn't help wondering what Arielle would have looked like had nature been allowed to take its course. 'Are you happy?'

The question seemed to surprise her. 'Yes, I suppose I am. Despite all this c.r.a.p with Stefan, I don't want for anything. Why, are you happy?'

Fitz grinned. Happiness was a state of mind that mystified him. Besides which, blind, accepting, conforming happiness didn't suit him. Pessimistic, questioning cynicism was more his style. 'Ecstatic,' he drawled.

Arielle's look grew distant. 'I often wonder what happened to the old Arielle. When I found out that beauty equals power, I turned into a right b.i.t.c.h.' She smiled and squeezed his hand. 'Don't worry, I've adjusted now. Once I got used to the way I looked I decided I wanted to learn more about appearances, how the way you look determines how others think of you, how they treat you. And so I began to research alien species, and human reactions towards them. Ever heard of Professor Hamilton Smith?'

Fitz shrugged. 'No.'

'He was a brilliant man. Published the definitive work on alien-human interaction, centuries ago. It was reading him that made me want to study xen.o.biology. And so that's why I'm here.' She frowned, obviously realising where she actually was. 'Or, rather, that's why I went to Yquatine.'

Her life story made sense. Fitz almost envied her.

'There's more to it than that.' She took a sip of wine. 'I thought that if I was among aliens my attractiveness wouldn't matter. I'd be free to study, without worrying how others saw me.'

Fitz nodded. Logical enough although Fitz found her irresistible, the Adamanteans, Eldrig, Kukutsi and all the others wouldn't pay her a blind bit of notice. 'Of course, not every human male would find you attractive.'

She glared at him. 'I wish. When they designed my face they used computer modelling, based on decades of surveys on beauty and attractiveness. Unfortunately I have the sort of face men usually only see in their dreams.'

From anyone else, this would have sounded like an arrogant boast, but from Arielle it sounded like a complaint.

Arielle was still caught up in her story. 'And what did I do? On my first day here, I met and fell in love with Stefan. Big mistake.'

'In love?' Fitz didn't believe in love at first sight. 'How did you know?'

'It was like a bolt out of the blue biggest cliche there is, but that's how it felt. It was as if I came here to find him. He completed me... and so on and so on.' She grimaced. 'Now I know it wasn't love. just infatuation. My first time away from home, the wine, the starry night...' She waved a hand. 'I'll not fall for that again.'

She raised her gla.s.s and they made a toast to not falling in love at first sight.

What Arielle had told Fitz explained so much about her the way she carried herself wasn't how beautiful women usually carried themselves, with a knowing, superior air. Arielle was completely natural and unselfconscious. And Fitz was becoming more and more selfconscious with every pa.s.sing second watching the way he ate, the way he drank, desperately trying not to fall in love with this woman.

Finally, in desperation, he said, 'How are the studies going?'

She pouted. 'Rotten. I'm completing my a.s.signments but I'm not really getting anywhere. Not much to show for almost a year's work.' She sighed. 'Perhaps my destiny doesn't lie on Yquatine.'

Fitz shivered. The only destiny awaiting anyone on that planet was death. 'What do you plan to do now?'

Arielle shrugged. 'I dunno. Could go to Zolion, stay at the university there for a few months. As long as I'm away from Stefan.'

'A man obsessed only with your beauty,' said Fitz.

She looked at him critically. 'How about you? D'you think you could fall in love with me, the real me? I'm bossy, I'm moody. I act a bit superior. But I'm more real than I appear.'

Fitz found himself actually blushing. Fall in love? No! It was the last thing he wanted to do. 'What about our toast?'

She took a long sip of wine. 'That was against love at first sight. The first time I saw you, you were being throttled by an Anthaurk. All I felt for you then was pity.'

He couldn't take his eyes off her, couldn't work out where she was coming from. 'And now?' he said hoa.r.s.ely.

She flicked a strand of hair away from her face. 'I don't know.'

b.l.o.o.d.y typical, thought Fitz, confusion settling on his mind. The first time he'd clapped eyes on Arielle it had certainly been l.u.s.t at first sight. Oh, crikey. 'Well, I don't know, either,' he babbled. 'I mean, I don't know you, you don't know me: He paused, thinking back on his travels. 'I mean, I don't even know me...'

Then he thought about Filippa.

He smiled at Arielle. She smiled back at him. 'More wine?' he said.

Compa.s.sion, still in her Anthaurk guise, fell towards the ground, completely calm and collected as the planet hurtled towards her. Everything seemed in slo-mo, which was nice. It allowed her to focus her Artron energy, prepare for dematerialisation. The moment she'd leapt, she had reverted to her default appearance with some relief. Looking like other things unsettled her, made her doubt who she was. She only hoped her chameleon circuit didn't get stuck like the Doctor's old TARDIS. The prospect of looking like an Anthaurk for the rest of her existence didn't bear thinking about and anyway she didn't have time because here came the ground.

As the wind tore through her flapping coat, she marshalled her energies for dematerialisation.

But something was happening. Connections were being made. sinking deep into her command circuits.

She had managed to reach New Anthaur with great difficulty; the Randomiser had tried to drag her away into the spiralling whorls of the vortex. She'd fought it, and won just but it had skipped her eight days into the future, like a pebble skimming across a lake.

But the Randomiser was fully connected now. She wouldn't be able to dematerialise without it dragging her away to anywhere, anywhen, with no guarantee of ever getting back here and finishing her tampering or of seeing the Doctor and Fitz again.

The ground filled her vision.

Would she die if she hit? She remembered the Doctor's old TARDIS. That was meant to he indestructible. And it had been totally destroyed.

Then she began to panic, began to scream in anger and fear.

She had no choice.

A second from impact, Compa.s.sion focused her energies, engaged her dematerialisation circuits, pulsed pure Artron energy through her time rotor, and the Randomiser took her screaming into the vortex.

Interlude 1 Cloudbusting The black cloud was very old and had travelled immeasurable distances, but it hadn't lost sight of its objective. It knew what it had to do. It knew little else. Each one of the particles in its enormous, moon-sized volume vibrated with the purpose its Masters had programmed into it. Some particles were there to shield from any type of radiation the spores that the cloud harboured in its dense central ma.s.s. Others were there to ensure the cloud remained undetected by even the most advanced of technologies, or to maintain the jet-black coloration of the particles, which absorbed light and emitted nothing. Others were there to catch the solar winds from the suns of the systems the cloud pa.s.sed through, sailing it through the starless chasms between them. Others were there to reach out into s.p.a.ce, to scan for radio emissions, certain types of radiation, the presence of life.

When it had entered this particular system, the scanning particles had almost overloaded with information. There was so much life here that the cloud or rather those particles within it that performed the function of mind didn't know where to go first. It hung there, invisible in s.p.a.ce, overwhelmed. It had eventually decided to set off in a more or less random direction towards the centre of the system. It was bound to b.u.mp into something sooner or later. There was no hurry: it had waited for millions of years already and a little longer wouldn't hurt. Besides which, the fulfilment of its objective would mean the end of its cloud-based existence, and, over the countless years, it had perhaps come to develop particles that enjoyed this state of being.

And so it drifted slowly on towards the centre of the system, its movements leisurely, invisible, inevitable.

Soon enough, it found what it was looking for. Life, encased in an artificial sh.e.l.l, travelling through s.p.a.ce at an incredible speed, more or less in the cloud's direction.

The cloud slowed, halted, positioned itself in the path of the oncoming object, its scanning particles busy. Its sentient particles recognised the sleek, smooth object as a 's.p.a.ceship', a machine used to ferry organic life between planets. At the speed it was travelling the ship would pa.s.s through the cloud in a flash, so it would have only one chance. It was confident. It knew it would succeed. It was what it was programmed for.

The cloud made itself denser, thicker, and activated the spore particles within. They became aroused, potent. As the ship drew nearer they rushed to the point in the cloud through which it would pa.s.s.

The ship streaked through the cloud like a bullet through paper. Contact was brief, but it was enough. The spore particles had adhered to the nose of the ship, and, as it sped on its way, they altered the molecules of the ceramic hull, integrating with the basic molecular structure, working their way in a chain reaction towards the interior. Only a few would make it to the artificial atmosphere inside, but it would be enough.

Now, an immense distance behind the hurtling ship, the black cloud, its task completed, activated certain particles that had been inert since its day of manufacture. These particles, ravenous and unstoppable, ate their way through the cloud, consuming the shield particles, the guidance particles, the sentient particles and all the other component particles of the cloud until there was nothing left. Then they, too, sated. withered and died in a final o.r.g.a.s.mic flare of energy.

Chapter Fourteen.

'You've got a lot of explaining to do'

Fitz lay on the bed in his cabin, lights dimmed, fully clothed, hands behind his head, staring at the ceiling. His head was spinning from too much wine and there was an ache behind his eyes. He felt as though he was being drawn into Arielle's world. as though she'd somehow infected him with her spores.

He laughed woozily. If only she was an alien. She'd be far easier to deal with. But she wasn't, she was a woman much more complex, much more dangerous.

He swung his legs over the side of the bed and stood up, wincing as the ache behind his eyes intensified to a sharp throbbing. He walked into the gleaming silver and aquamarine en suite and splashed water on to his face, trying to clear his mind. A plan was forming, a plan he liked very much, and which he hated himself for liking.

He was going to get away from Yquatine, and take his chances with Arielle. He knew she liked him that much was clear from the light in her dark-brown eyes and maybe this was it. The woman who could save him.

And Compa.s.sion and the Doctor?

Fitz turned away so he didn't have to look at his reflection, water dripping from his face into the gleaming sink. The guilt was still there, and he knew it wouldn't ever go away. He'd just have to learn to live with it. But what could he do? How could he save the Doctor? How could he change the future without being absolutely sure he wasn't destroying it?

He looked at himself, at his thin face, the large grey eyes, long hair, lips that seemed always to be on the verge of uttering a lie or a facile witticism. Hardly a face you could trust. A face that let people down. Shifty. Cowardly.

Time for truth. Fitz. He knew what he was doing. Running away. So what?

Maybe the Doctor and Compa.s.sion would come out of it. Maybe they didn't need him. Maybe they would save the day on their own and come and pick him up. Then everything would be all right. Wouldn't it?

'You can run,' he said to his reflection in the circular mirror. 'but you can't hide. But at least you can b.l.o.o.d.y well run.'

Then he heard a scream, a shrill female shriek of alarm. He swung round, stepped back into the room. There it was again, coming from the next room. From Arielle's room.

He was at her door in seconds, and without knocking thrust it fully open and stepped inside, calling her name.

She was standing in the middle of the room. her hands over her face, hair falling loosely over her shoulders. She'd taken her trousers off, revealing the shapeliest pair of pins he had ever seen d.a.m.n it!

'Arielle?' he called again.

She showed no sign of hearing him.

He walked up to her. Her toenails were perfect, like little pink seash.e.l.ls. 'Arielle?'

He reached out and touched her bare arm.

She s.n.a.t.c.hed the limb away and swung round, a throaty gasp escaping her lips, her eyes 'What the h.e.l.l?'

Fitz stepped nearer, narrowing his eyes in concern.

Arielle blinked and smiled nervously, looking at Fitz and the room as if it was the first time she'd set eyes on either.

Fitz's scalp actually tingled. He couldn't be dead sure, but for a moment her eyes had looked totally black, as though her pupils had dilated beyond the limit of her eyelids.

They looked normal enough now, though. 'Are you OK?'

She looked a bit sh.e.l.l-shocked and peaky. She hugged herself, moved one leg so her left instep rested on her right foot. 'Yes, I'm fine,' she said in a husky voice.

Then she collapsed in a heap at Fitz's feet.

Later. Fitz was standing on one side of a wall of smoked gla.s.s, and Arielle was on the other, under a single white sheet, a horseshoe of medical equipment surrounding her head. Deep coma, the doctors had told him. They couldn't tell him how long it would last, or what had caused it.

Typical. The moment he falls in love with a girl, she falls into a coma. There are easier ways of avoiding a relationship with me, he thought, caught in a paroxysm of self-pity, anguish and the usual underlying background radiation of Kreiner guilt.

The next stop was Luvia; they should be arriving in a few hours. He'd go both with away her from to the Yquatine hospital, keep an eye on her. At least they were.

But, for Arielle, it might be the end of the story.