She joined his church.

She prayed to his G.o.d.

She indulged in his rituals.

But she never understood.

And so she had run from the yawning chasm of ignorance, the dark echoing void that told her that sometimes there were no answers; no matter how much you cried and screamed into your cheap foam pillow at night, or how many times you clicked the heels of your ruby slippers together; no answers that meant a d.a.m.n, anyway. And one day she got up, packed her things, and paid her motel bill. She got into her car, the red car that fitted her like a glove - only now it felt tight, constraining, restricting, as if was a parent or lover she had outgrown - and she turned the wheel for England, and the TARDIS and the beckoning universe she used to call '- home. Oh, G.o.d, I really want to go home rightnow '

Her voice was a whine, the repet.i.tive clunk of environment boots, a counterpoint to the sound of fists beating against gla.s.s. Beyond the gla.s.s - stars. Each star a choice. Each a decision. A solution. Each was an offer of life to countless billions, a glowing ma.s.s of possibilities mapped across the eighty or so refugees crammed into the observation lounge.

And how could she refuse such a choice? How could she do what that child's father had done? How could she refuse to give life?

What was her memory not her memory it wasn't stopping her?

There was no answer. She knew what was right and she knew this was right - but somewhere inside she knew it was wrong as well. But not why.

'The most important questions always remained unanswered .'

'Doctor?'

Sam turned sharply from the observation window, the darkly lambent cloud swirl that was the nightside of the gas giant Belannia XII. The lounge was empty. No refugees. No sounds. No breathing, no coughing, none of the moans of pain, the professional murmurings of the medical staff. All gone.

Sam shivered suddenly. She had wanted to be alone - wanted it more than anything. Alone to make a decision. But on this ship, in this fleet, there was noalone . Until now.

She looked around. Empty room. Not just empty: silent. Not just silent: a complete absence of the feeling of life, of any of the indications that there was anything beyond the gla.s.s double doors other than empty s.p.a.ce. No distant conversation, no thump of running feet, no teeth itching subsonic engine rumble.

Nothing.

Just the furniture and, beyond the gla.s.s windows, the stars.

Her choices.

And the planet, Belannia XD. A marbled olive and black eye which glared unblinkingly at her, into her.

'Have you ever wondered why the most important questions are never answered? '

She jumped. Shivered again. Something about the voice made her teeth itch and her eyes water 'Of course ibis question might be one of the important ones -in which case you'll never know .'

Sam rubbed her eyes. The hairs on the back of her hand stood perpendicular to her skin. She watched them for a moment, let the stars go out of focus. When she put her hand down there was someone in the room with her.

A boy. Danny... No - a girl... a bloodstained, girl empty of life... No - something vast and ancient, something that would have trouble fitting into a small country, let alone the room. Yet it was here. Somehow the room seemed to hold it. Not a physical presence. An intellect. A mind. Something that demanded her attention. That brought the forgotten past back into sharp focus and with it, a warning.

'Life approaches .'

Sam felt herself move, as in a dream, her feet feeling neither steps on carpeted metal nor ache of toxin-laden muscles. She moved without moving, saw without seeing... what?

A scintillating barrage of colour - light made solid and given form. She heard the light. Smelled and tasted it. It looked like the past. Smelled like hot tarmac and blood. Tasted like love and loss.

'... help... '

It was Danny's voice. It was the biker girl's voice. It was the voice of her mother, her father, everyone she had ever loved or hated, everyone she had ever heard.

'... them...'

It was the Doctor's voice It was her own voice.

'... now. '

Sam clapped her hands to her ears. She didn't want to hear this. Not this. Not now. She lurched towards the doors. The infirmary. I have to get to the infirmary. The stimulants... I need... the drugs are...

She glided away, not in physical s.p.a.ce, but in time. Her feet felt no movement because they were not moving. She was not moving, in one sense.But in other senses... oh... in other... ways she... moved...

shemovedsofastthattimefledandlight itselfbecame...

... a...

... meticulous...

...plodding...

... turtle...

... crawl; her body a beach at midnight; rainbow sp.a.w.n hatching to skitter madly towards the water; light that formed pictures, brought knowledge, a gift, the future.

'I will live for ever ,' said Danny 'She will live for ever ,' said the girl's father.

'They will live for ever ,' said Saketh.

'You will live for ever ,' said the Doctor.

And- - No! said Sam - - I'm scored! she cried - - I can't! she screamed - - and turned, this way, that, a fractured series of movements, the need for frantic escape made real and solid and poured into a woman and trapped in a woman and oh Christ she was trapped she was trapped in her own head trapped in this tiny portion of the universe callednow and she couldn't get out, couldn't get away, couldn't escape from decision truth warning couldn't truth get warning away and she could run from the death, run from the past, from the future, run from the infirmary. All these she could escape; she couldn't escape her decision that easily.

The truth was she had to go back. Take communion. Save the son and his father.

And change herself for ever.

So she ran.

She ran past the refugees, pushing them aside, ignoring their startled expressions, headed back for the infirmary at a dead run on legs that felt nothing, on feet that carried her on wings of hope.

When she got there the baby was dead; the father close to death.

She stopped the nurses as they were taking the baby away. 'Wait.I have to...'

They let her look. They shouldn't have but they did. Sam stared at the baby's face, a perfect moment, ended, zippered into a biohazard bag, tossed aside through some airlock like so much garbage.

'I'm sorry,' she said. Where were the tears? Was that an important question? 'I'm here now. It's all right. I can save you. Oh G.o.d, I'm so sorry.'

The dead baby opened its eyes.

They looked at her. Right into her.

They were planets; marbled green-black cloud swirl; the dark side of Belannia XII.

'No,' the baby said with a slight frown and a priest's perfect voice. "That's not what I meant at all.'

Sam screamed and turned to run, arms outflung, nurses, bag, baby, gurney, instruments, all sent flying, smashing to the floor with a sound like a hall of mirrors exploding, splintered turtle light crawling back into the womb of the sea to escape the predatornow , the future beckoning with death's fingers as the - - sun - - thesun was - - oh Lord it was going to - Pushing her way clear of the refugees crammed into the observation lounge, not caring whether they were even real or not, Sam figured out the shortest route to the cruiser's nervesphere and ran.

The nervesphere might have been the only room in the ship where there were no refugees. A huge s.p.a.ce with high, vaulted viewports and a ma.s.s of technical stations lathered with coloured lights, it seemed to Sam, on the one occasion she visited it, to put her much in mind of a church or cathedral. The quiet helped. There was no carpet. The walls were bare black metal, field conductors to ensure the brains that ran the ship and the brains that ran the brains were protected from the energies of the drive system.

When Sam burst on to the bridge she was laughing and crying at the same time. Her heart was pounding, tears were coursing down her cheeks. 'I know!' she shouted, her voice hoa.r.s.e. 'We have to go down! The third moon! We have to go now!'

Saketh was with the captain; both turned to look at her, one with interest, the other with frank amazement. The other bridge crew politely ignored her. She didn't care. She marched up to the captain and said breathlessly, 'I know. I understand now. It's coming. It's coming now. We have to get into the water. The third moon. Only I can save us now.' She searched the captain's face for a glimmer of empathy.'You do understand, don't you?' She turned to Saketh.'You understand. I know you do. Make him understand!' The captain frowned. 'Calm down, Sam, or I'll have you escorted from the bridge.You don't see me setting an example like this to the refugees.'

Sam wrung her hands. Behind her eyes a vision of such intensity flashed that it obscured the man completely. 'Saketh. Tell him. We'll all die unless you listen to me. I know! I cansave us! '

The captain shot a sideways glance at Saketh.Sedation? his eyes seemed to ask. Emotional trauma?

Saketh shook his head, a skeleton of a movement, no emotional flesh to lead meaning to the action.'The moment of epiphany can take many forms. We had discussed life, responsibility. It seems, Sam, you have taken my meaning to heart.'

Sam remembered a dead baby talking and repeated its words. "No. That's not what I meant at all!' she cried, elbowing them aside and throwing herself at the controls. "There's no time to explain. The nine is now! Now, don't you understand? It's now' Her hands blurred across the maze of light as three crewmen moved to intercept her, the captain among them. They pulled her away but not before the work was finished. The captain's face creased with concern. 'Sam, tell me what's wrong. Are you ill? What do you mean by this behaviour? Can't we talk about it?'

Sam slumped, muscles slack with exhaustion, too tired to do anything other than gasp out syllables. "There. Fly that course. Don't ask me why. I can't explain. Just fly that course. Now. Do it now and well live.'

The captain sighed. 'Sam, if we fly that course we'll smash into the ice crust of the third moon. All that's underneath there is ocean - three thousand kilometres deep. If we don't explode on impact we'll drown or be crushed. We'll all die.'

Sam began to struggle weakly. 'No! You've got it wrong. I know. We'll die if we don't crash!'

His patience exhausted, the captain signalled for Sam to be taken away. He sighed tiredly, his expression showing compa.s.sion and concern. 'It's the stimulants. It has to be. She should never have taken them. We have qualified personnel; the responsibility is mine.' He glanced at Saketh for support.

Saketh frowned. He appeared not to have heard the captain's words.

'No,' he said, at last. 'As master of this vessel I instruct you to obey Sam. Follow the course she set.'

The captain was incredulous.'It will mean our deaths!'

'Will it?' Saketh offered the thinnest of enigmatic smiles. 'You must have faith, Captain. Now, please, do as Sam asks. Apply maximum speed.'

From the bridge entrance, Sam looked back. Her arms were held by the crewmen escorting her, more to support her than to restrain her. But her eyes blazed. "Thank you,' she whispered. 'For showing me the way.'

Even Sam herself didn't know if she was addressing Saketh, the unnamed presence she had felt in her mind or the cracked, ice-grey orb growing with frightening speed in the viewports.

The innermost planet of the Bel system was a charred cinder of a world, consisting of little more than molten rock and an atmosphere poisonous in the extreme. When the second scream came from Bel the atmosphere was torn away in a blast of vaporising molecules. The mantle cracked; magma erupted; the surface of Belannia I died. The planet joined three major moons destroyed in the previous blast, in surging reefs of asteroidal debris which were themselves quickly shredded by the aftershocks.

Further out in the system, the chaos was indescribable. If the universe had ears to hear and a mind to understand the gestalt scream of despair and agony from the Bel system, it would have wrenched a tear from even its ice-cold heart.

Not entirely unexpectedly, the arrival of three new planetary bodies in the Bel system went almost completely unnoticed. The bodies entered the system unseen by humans, recognised only dimly by the ancient empathic inhabitants of the gas giants of the outer system and not at all by the life also undergoing a second, unexpected, birth trauma on the surface of Belannia II.

Of the billions then alive, of the millions that were injured, the thousands more that were dying, only one had even the vaguest idea that there were now two additional, previously unknown, sentient species in the Bel system, also caught in a desperate struggle to perpetuate their own existence, to further their own survival. Sam Jones, however, had problems enough of her own.

In some ways the message was very clear.

It came looping out of the void and into the minds of every living thing like a family ghost; a memory triggered by long forgotten scent; a homing instinct, a nesting instinct; an image as clear and sharp a drop of blood on a thorn; yet at the same time as indistinct as a fragment of dust trapped in a spider's web.

Yes, there were words. Yes, there was meaning. Layer after layer, geologically compressed, flattened into an insistent white noise of emotions. So much so that meaning was the last thing that could be ascribed to it.

Superficially the message was very simple: We want to help but you must all die.

That was it. Nine words. Or none. Depending on how you chose to look at it. For no words were heard, not with ears. But minds across the entire solar system felt the meaning and reeled with the shock and force of contact: isolationlifefuturebirthdeathloss.e.xistencelovelifedeath At some level there was the implication of questions; of knowledge and understanding sought.

whatisdeathwhatispainwh.o.a.reyouwhereareyouwhatarewetoyouwhyarewetoyou Elsewhere there were just statements. Of intent?

helpusloveusliveforyoudieforus Those versed in the subtleties of language discussed the meaning, the implied contradiction, the lack of meaning, the contextual layers, the shading of meaning derived from different cultural viewpoints. The discussions became arguments became threats became violence.

Many saw the message as a positive force - first contact with an extrasolar intelligence come to rescue life in the system from destruction; others also linked the message with the changes occurring to the sun and treated it as a threat. Still others saw it as proof of the existence of G.o.d - but, since there were as many G.o.ds as there were cultures, that clarified precisely nothing.

A prominent mathematician interpreted the message as an equation: Given that: isolation = life where: loss = existence and: future = birth cup death where: birth anddeath were both minor subsets oflove ; if:life + existence =future then: isolation + loss = love But the mathematician in question was notorious for his unhappy childhood and so the rather bleak meaning he ascribed to the message was largely ignored.

Of the billions who experienced the message, the millions who misinterpreted it, the thousands who tried to ascribe meaning to it, only one came close to understanding the truth.

The Doctor, however, had problems enough of his own.

Chapter Five.

Screams. All Sam could hear were screams.

They came from the radio, punching through the radiation shoals with difficulty, intermittently penetrating the ice crust and ocean slurry which now held them trapped like a fly in a particularly blank and icy amber.

Screams of the dying.

Sam huddled herself into a ball in the observation lounge and tried not to think about. It wasn't as if she could do anything, right?