They werealive .

How?

Saketh had the answer.

'They ate of my flesh and drank of my blood. That was all.'

Sam found herself frowning in disgust. 'That's a horrible metaphor.'

Saketh laughed. Some of the refugees laughed as well. Sam shuddered - at the same time she couldn't help feeling she'd missed something. A connection between item, a subtlety... something.

Saketh said, 'You remember when we first met? At the garden on Belannia YTs moon? I walked into an airless vacuum, Sam. I lived. Our next meeting, in the s.p.a.ceport on Belannia VIII? I saved the child for you. What will it take for you to trust me?'

Sam frowned. 'Why is it so important to you that I do?'

Saketh said simply,'Because I love you and I want you to live. I love everyone. I want everyone to live. I want life for all. Life everlasting. I offer it to you. All you need to do is reach out to me and take it.'

Sam felt her hands twisting inside the starsuit gloves. Her skin felt greasy. Her nose itched. Boy, how she needed to scratch it.

'You are here to a.s.sess my gift. Because you feel responsible for the refugees in your ship.' Saketh considered.'You had no control before. No choice. Not with Danny. He was dying. Now you feel you have a choice. Perhaps you do. But if you do it's a luxury determined by the life-support reserves aboard your ship. Air, water, to a lesser extent food. Those are the rules, Sam. The rules of life. Come to me; eat of my flesh and I will change those rules for you.'

Sam bit her lip. She winced as the old wound opened again. 'I want to talk to your followers.'

Saketh spread his arms.'Of course.'

Sam walked among the people, felt their bodies close to hers. The red telltales on their suits were like demons' eyes in the cobalt gloom, weighed down with arcane secrets. The flat, glaring eyes capered unblinkingly around her, pressing close. Curious. Accusing. Waiting to see what she would say. Waiting to hear what she might want.

Waiting to give her what she sought? A gift as life itself had been a gift from Saketh?

Sam had no answer to that.

How could any of these refugees give her rea.s.surance when they should be dead?

Sam had no answer for that, either.

So she asked,'Why are you alive?'

She almost felt Saketh smile; he thought she'd asked the wrong question.

The refugees pressed close, their helmets touching hers, clunking, clacking. Sam recoiled instinctively from them; then as the first voices reached her clearly she realised what was happening: like the life-support units, their suit radios had no power. They were using direct conductance to communicate, projecting their voices to her through the material of their helmets, the atmospheres within.

The voices came together, a slurry of noise pouring into her helmet, the cavernous billow of sound filling her ears and mind with images. Images she couldn't ignore.

Suffering, torment, defeated hope.

Images of death.

And then Saketh came with a choice and brought life with him.

Not to all: some would not see, some were repelled by the act required to gain life. They died in ignorance: their bodies ravaged by radiation and grief. The survivors watched the loss of others, sometimes loved ones... but they turned away from their loss to Saketh. He a.s.suaged their guilt, healed their loss.

They ate of his flesh and drank of his blood.

He filled their emptiness with eternity.

Sam found herself backing away from the refugees. But she couldn't move; they were all around her, pressing close, claustrophobic in their need to convince. Mindless in their drive to show how good and right their new lives were.

More - there seemed to be more of them too. Green demons' eyes moving eagerly among the red. More refugees. Those from her ship.

No. She hadn't made it safe yet. What were they doing here? They should have waited!

Too late.

Even as she turned Sam saw Saketh open his arms to welcome his new congregation.

He removed his gloves and helmet to pa.s.s benediction. Seeing the wounds on his face, the newly healed teethmarks, the bite radii perfectly matched to the human jaw, Sam suddenly knew the price of eternity.

It was a price she could not afford.

Her only fear was how little time remained in which she would have the luxury of not having to pay it.

s.p.a.ce is not silent. s.p.a.ce is not empty. If you have ears to hear and eyes to see you will know this. The orbit of Belannia X was not normally a place frequented by more than one body of planetary ma.s.s.

Now there were four.

One was surrounded by several hundred smaller objects - a s.p.a.ce fleet consisting of more than a hundred pacifists whose intentions were to open communication with the solar system's unexpected visitors, and the navy vessels a.s.signed to keep them from approaching the new planet.

It would have been nice to think there was some way to avoid the violent actions about to take place.

Human nature being what it is, however, it should have been very clear that there was not.

The Doctor watched as the inevitable occurred. He knew it was coming, had seen it before. It was a face as ugly as it was familiar - the visage of conflict, of aggression; something his own people had learned a short sharp lesson from before Earth's sun had formed in s.p.a.ce.

Now they were watchers, their feelings and opinions locked behind masks of their own. But not so the Doctor. He had to involve himself. For him it was unavoidable. He had to poke. He had to poke the nest.

He had to see what came out.

If it was broken, he had to fix it; if it was injured he had to heal it. There was good in everything, he knew that.

So why the pain, the fear, the guilt, the humiliation, the death?

Why was any of it necessary?

The only answer he had ever found was that, when you were dealing with humans, there were no easy answers.

There were no easy answers now, either.

The ships had approached. Smoot had warned them off. His tones had not exactly been friendly. The pacifists had taken umbrage. The military were notorious for poking as well. Only they poked at the civilian population, or the aliens, at any one of a hundred issues that caught the attention of the pacifist, that stung their moral senses.

The Doctor could see it wasn't going to work.

He was right.

Human nature being what it was, someone was always going to up the ante.

Before any intervention was possible the pacifists simply moved their ships closer to the new planet, hoping to gain cover against possible attack. Smoot responded predictably. His orders were to prevent contact by any means necessary.Well, then, that was what he'd do.

The pacifists had s.p.a.ce defences - ancient, second-hand gear traded at s.p.a.ceport auctions, collectors' pieces; it was a wonder any of them worked. On a better day than this Smoot might have admired the historical significance symbolised by such equipment.

Not today.

Today was a day for suspicion, pain, anger and fear - in that order.

It was perhaps inevitable that, threatened by the approach of fighters ordered to escort them back into a higher orbit, the pacifists would open fire.

Three navy escort ships were destroyed in the first salvo.

Surprised, the navy pilots retaliated.

It wasn't until much later that anyone realised the ships were only destroyed only because the pacifists were not familiar with the old military override codes on the proximity detonators. Missiles fired to warn had killed and that was all anyone knew until it was much toolate.

Beyond the flagship vision ports: death, destruction; blossoms of energy popping like deadly seedb.a.l.l.s against the glittering bulk of the alien world. Stars drifted past, stately, inevitable. Surprised, the navy ships were now regrouping. Hesitant to fire on civilians, they were forced to retaliate or be destroyed. The Doctor lowered his face.

Humans.

He fixed Smoot with a piercing gaze. "They'll need medics.' Behind him, more fire. A ship spiralled crazily into the atmosphere of the new world.

s.p.a.ce looked like a fireworks party.

Conaway said,'I'll go.' Her expression said, See what happens if you try to stop me.

Smoot's jaw worked silently. His face was a mask. Another mask. Everything about humans was masks. Layers. Subtleties. Was he concerned for Conaway's safety? Or the breach of orders he was about to commit?

According to complexity theory, everything in the universe -every sc.r.a.p of matter, every relationship between any two molecules - could be described by a mathematical formula. Not for the first time the Doctor wished fervently for such a formula able to adequately describe human behaviour.

Not for the first time, his wish was ignored by whatever higher powers governed the operation of this universe they had brought into being.

Beside the Doctor, Smoot began to wonder very seriously about the kind of species-specific bio-weapons the aliens might be able to cook up given adequate numbers of Belannian survivors.

In the launch bay, Conaway crunched the first of many headache tablets between her teeth, shivered at the insanely disgusting taste and wondered how it was that life in proximity to her ex-husband always seemed to be a nightmare for somebody, princ.i.p.ally herself.

Out in s.p.a.ce more people died, their ruined ships whirling, sycamore flames, to plant seeds of destruction upon the new ground beneath.

For Sam the corridors of the ship were cold, empty - alien s.p.a.ces without the refugees to give them life. On the surface of the ice moon a rebirth was taking place. A rebirth of which she could not be part.

Her own feelings had kept her apart.

Her world shifted again.

She saw a red car, blood-red, a road, the road to the future.

She saw a dead girl talking.

'Help,' said the girl through perfect, dying lips.' You must help me! Help me, now!'

Sam felt the world lurch. On some level she felt herself falling to the deck, the cry a pressure she could not fight, though somehow she did; fought to rise to her knees, to crawl from the memories of blood and death, the urgency, the terrible, agonised cry that billowed continuously inside her head.

!!help!!

!!you must help me!!

A demand that could not be ignored. This time she wasn't the only one to sense it.

She found Denadi semiconscious on the bridge. She helped him to his feet.

'You felt it too?' he asked.

'It was like being sat on by a football crowd.'

Denadi frowned.'What'sfootball? '

Sam decided to change the subject. 'I've been having... bad dreams. Visions.' She shook her head to try to clear the fuzzy feeling still lodged there.'Memories... particularly real ones... an accident... it was like I was reliving it all over again. Then I realised I hadn't relived it the first time. It wasn't my memory. I thought I was going mad. But what if the visions were telepathy? Someone trying to communicate?'

'A cry for help?'

'Yes.'

'From the refugees, perhaps? A byproduct of what Saketh is doing to them?'

'I don't know. I don't think so. The images are too personal... but it doesn't feel as if it were someone who knew me. No...' Sam struggled to describe the image that she now realised had been building inside her head for some time.'It's more like... well... more like what I imagine it might be if youdidn't know someone, but were able to reach into their head and find a route... a route to communication... a highway to the most intimate part of my memories... and use the images there to communicate...' Sam shook her head.'I'm not making much sense, am I?'

'No. But only because I don't have your memories.'

Sam frowned. 'Yes but that's just it: they'renot my memories.' She frowned, added,'Not yet, anyway.'

'What does that mean?'

'"Why do we only remember backwards?" Stephen Hawking said that. Something about black holes... about time... about thedirection of time...' Sam trailed off, shook her head.'I dunno. Half-baked thought, I suppose. Sorry.'

'And this is what makes you think the communication is a cry for help?'